


The Dread Pirate Ladybug

by Lycaonpictus77



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: F/M, I have not yet decided, deviates from TPB's plot but mostly towards the end, literally just a princess bride au, possibly with communism
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-30
Updated: 2018-04-30
Packaged: 2018-08-12 22:47:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 66,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7952230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lycaonpictus77/pseuds/Lycaonpictus77
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Adrien Agreste lived out a pastoral youth beside his true love, until tragedy struck. Five years have done little to dull the pain, and Adrien finds himself engaged to a woman he doesn't love, heir to the throne of their small kingdom. Meanwhile, rumors are stirring that the Dread Pirate Ladybug is marauding up and down the coastline, and a small band of mercenaries sets its plan in motion...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Groom

Adrien couldn’t help being beautiful.  
  
It was a rare thing, little shining moments interspersed between long periods of being a raggedy (if adorable) youth, and a rumpled mess.  
  
He spent his days working his employers’ farm, tending the sheep, mucking out the stables, making repairs here and there, until he retired to the small shack reserved just for him. It had at one point been a shed, and he’d been offered the chance to expand it, but he didn’t have many possessions and only really needed room for a bed.  
  
The farmer’s daughter, an exceedingly quiet creature named Marinette, brought him out his share of dinner every night, and although she never did much other than sit with him or stammer something about the weather, it tended to be the most human interaction he got in a day. He was always sincere when he thanked her and handed her back his plate or bowl, and she was always jumpy and nervous when she brushed off his gratitude and scurried back inside.  
  
Suddenly alone, with a full stomach and an aching body, Adrien would retire to his hovel, collapsing immediately onto the bed. After hours of toiling in all kinds of weather, Adrien was most often a) filthy, b) smelly, and c) still, somehow, beautiful.  
  
He was pretty pleased with the realization, when it eventually came to him. His mother had been beautiful, and he’d always been told he looked like her, so why shouldn’t he be beautiful too? He’d catch his reflection in the water barrel some days and pause for a while to stare into her green eyes, set in his own round, mud-caked face.  
  
On these occasions, Adrien felt it was a disservice to her eyes, to be stuck in such a dirty, guileless face, and he’d scrub himself clean with the hem of his sleeves until satisfied. It was the closest to preening he got until, shortly before his sixteenth birthday, he rode into town to buy some candles.  
  
And everyone ignored him.  
  
Well… not everyone—but those around his age, certainly. They had never been close (Adrien spent most of his time on the farm or sleeping,) but casual nods would be exchanged in passing, gossip shared under the eaves of some shop or other. Now, in the glaring absence of these social niceties, Adrien found himself faced with absent glares.  
  
From all around, narrowed eyes leered, and narrowed mouths sneered, and people muttered conversations he couldn’t quite make out.  
  
Thinking that perhaps he’d committed some kind of faux pas, Adrien did his best to look contrite instead of bewildered and hurt. He bought his candles in silence, and went home somewhat shaken. He simply nodded at Marinette instead of thanking her for dinner, but if she noticed she didn’t say anything.  
  
The next few visits to town went almost exactly the same, until one day Adrien couldn’t take it anymore. He cornered Théo one morning outside the blacksmith’s and begged to know where he’d gone wrong. Théo stared at him with disgust.  
  
“I should think,” said Théo, shoulders stiff and fists clenched, “that you’d at least have the courtesy not to pretend to ask, after what you’ve done.”  
  
“Done? What have I done?” asked Adrien, a little desperate.  
  
“You’ve stolen them,” spat Théo, pushing his way past and leaving Adrien less bewildered but more hurt than ever. He stared after Théo, who shouldered his way through a crowd of tittering girls, and Adrien realized who ‘them’ was. Without a word, he returned to his horse and rode for the farm. He didn’t succumb to tears until he dismounted.  
  
“Oh Cheval,” he sobbed into the horse’s mane, “what am I going to do?”  
  
“Adrien?”  
  
Adrien whirled so fast his head spun, and through a veil of tears saw Marinette standing in the small paddock before the stable. She looked deeply uncomfortable, but the concern in her eyes was unmistakable. Embarrassed, Adrien rubbed at his face with the side of his arm, smearing tears and snot and probably some drool and possibly some horse hair all over himself. Staring at his sodden sleeve, Adrien took a moment to think to himself, _Well, it can’t get any worse—_  
  
And then he hiccupped.  
  
Like the herald of a storm, the small chirp signaled a renewed onslaught of sobbing, and Adrien burst into fresh tears at this new humiliation. Choking and sniffling and hiccupping as he was, it took some time for him to notice the arm around his shoulders.  
  
As his unrestrained weeping wound down to shuddering gasps and, still, hiccups, Adrien found himself sitting on the ground, his face buried in his knees, which he’d pulled up to his chest. The arm around his shoulders rubbed consoling circles on his back, and as he quieted down he could hear the small words of reassurance being offered.  
  
“It’s okay,” said Marinette, soft and sweet as anything, “It’s all going to be alright.”  
  
“You don’t know that,” he croaked, “y-you don’t even know what’s wrong.”  
  
“Do you want to talk about it?”  
  
Adrien sat for a while, focusing on his breathing. Marinette didn’t say anything else, giving him time to sort out his feelings on the matter. Did he want to talk about it? It couldn’t hurt, probably. And it was so nice to have someone actually look at him, someone his own age. He’d been practically shunned for weeks now.  
  
“Everyone hates me,” he said finally, pushing his face into his knees a little harder, so that the words were muffled by his pants.  
  
“Who’s everyone?”  
  
“Not… not _everyone_ -everyone, but all the boys. An’ the girls won’t talk to me.”  
  
“The boys?” asked Marinette. It was becoming increasingly clear to Adrien that she had no idea what he was talking about, but he didn’t really know how to communicate it without essentially saying ‘I’m so good-looking it’s a curse’.  
  
“The boys in town,” he mumbled. She was still rubbing circles on his back, and it helped him calm down a little more. He tried to time his breaths to the top of each loop.  
  
“Did something happen?”  
  
Adrien groaned.  
  
“S-sorry, I just mean—well—did you do something bad? I’m sure they don’t _hate_ you,” Marinette clarified.  
  
“They won’t talk to me,” said Adrien, sniffing. He tilted his head so one red, puffy eye could peer out at Marinette. “Some of them won’t even _l-look_ at me. I didn’t do it on purpose…”  
  
“What happened?” asked Marinette, gentle and supportive and probably about to laugh in his face when he said this next part—  
  
“I got too beautiful and I stole all the girls.”  
  
He winced as he said it, pressing his face back into his knees so he didn’t have to watch her process his words. Her hand stilled against his shoulders.  
  
“You _‘stole’_ them?” asked Marinette, her voice somewhat strained.  
  
He peeked out at her again. She wasn’t laughing. She wasn’t even smiling.  
  
“That’s what Théo said,” he told her. He was still mumbling a little, but the fact that she wasn’t openly mocking him was encouraging enough for him to raise his head from his knees. He rubbed his nose with the back of his hand.  
  
“Théo _would,_ ” she muttered darkly. Adrien didn’t say anything, watching her eyes flash. He’d never seen Marinette get angry. Was that what was happening? Was she angry?  
  
“Listen,” she told him firmly, looking at him with such a severe expression that he automatically sat up a little straighter, “I know it’s hard right now, and it might be for a long time, but this isn’t your fault. You didn’t do anything. If people like you it’s their choice or their feelings or whatever, and—and your face is hardly something you can control, so Théo’s just plain wrong. If the boys won’t talk to you, then just talk to the girls.”  
  
“The girls won’t talk to me either,” he reminded her, “They all like me.” Okay, that was speculation, but it sure felt that way, and he was none-too-pleased. It was nice to be liked, and while he was deeply flattered and more than a little humbled, if being liked meant no one was going to talk to him for the rest of his life, he’d rather return to his blissful days of undesirability.  
  
“Oh,” said Marinette, reddening, “R-right. Well—well you should still try talking to them. I bet it would make them pretty happy. I know it would make me happy, if um, if I were them.”  
  
“Yeah?” asked Adrien, allowing himself to get a little hopeful. Maybe everything would be alright after all.  
  
“Yeah,” she said, “and—they can get to um, get to know you a little better, too. Maybe they won’t be so bad about liking you once they’ve seen how silly you are.”  
  
He gave a scandalized gasp, steepling one hand on his chest.  
  
“You _wound_ me, my lady! Are you implying they only like me for my pretty face? Am I just a piece of meat to you?”  
  
She giggled, pushing his shoulder as he grinned back at her. They sat in companionable silence for a while, watching Cheval browse the edges of the paddock for spare bits of grass, until Marinette’s mother called her for dinner. She got to her feet, dusting off her skirts, and Adrien caught her wrist.  
  
“Thank you,” he told her, and boy, did he mean it. He felt so sincerely grateful for her help and advice and concern that he almost teared up again on the spot. Marinette stared back at him, mouth clamped shut, face getting redder and redder the longer they looked at one another. Her eyes dropped to his hand around her wrist, and he released her immediately with an apologetic smile. She returned it, gave a small, jerky wave, and took off for the house at a dead run.  
  
Adrien blinked.  
  
Apparently her ability to form complete sentences in his presence had been temporary—which was a shame, because as it turned out, Adrien really needed to hear what she had to say. It seemed he’d been missing out on quite a bit of wisdom, these past few years.  
  
He went about his evening chores, trying to figure out the catalyst for her sudden verbosity.  
  
Let’s see, he had been crying—well hopefully that wasn’t it—she had been angry—again, wow, hopefully no—and he had been… silly? Flirty?  
  
Adrien washed his hands and face, more to rinse out the snot than to make any attempt at hygiene, and waited outside the back door for his food. He fidgeted, overly conscious of how he was standing. He wound up posing against a tree trunk, leaning against it with a hollow bravado he knew Marinette would see through in an instant. Nervously, he crossed and uncrossed his ankles.  
  
She opened the door, took one look outside, and burst into laughter.  
  
“Hey!” he protested, though he couldn’t quite smother his grin.  
  
“I’m sorry,” said Marinette, though she didn’t sound very sorry at all, “you just look—I mean—why are you standing like that? _How_ are you standing like that?”  
  
“Skill alone, my lady,” said Adrien, uncrossing his ankles and pushing himself off the tree with his back. His arms were folded over his chest, which he made a point of puffing out as he swaggered towards her. She was doing her best to stifle her giggling, with little success.  
  
He took his plate from her with an elaborate flourish of his wrist, and a low bow. She was helpless with mirth at this point, but seemed to be more relaxed than she’d ever been around him before.  
  
Hm.  
  
Flirty.  
  
He might be onto something.  
  
∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙

“My lady,” he said to her one day outside the stables, “will you polish my saddle? It need shine only half as bright as your eyes—though I’m sure no amount of varnish could do even that credibly.”  
  
She had just finished polishing her own saddle, or he wouldn’t have asked; Adrien hated polishing anything, and avoided it at all costs, including lurking around the stables until someone else was already in the process of it.  
  
Marinette’s cheeks colored as she met his playful grin with a roll of her eyes. “Only half as bright, you say? Maybe I’ll just keep them closed, and save myself the trouble of polishing anything.”  
  
She turned away from him, a self-satisfied smirk playing across her lips. Well, that wouldn’t do. Adrien would be damned if he let her win another round of their banter before lunch.  
  
He caught her by the waist with his fingertips, and she twisted back to him, surprised. She went crimson at their proximity but didn’t move away, staring at him. He stared back, feeling his own cheeks heat in surprise at his actions.  
  
“I—I would never ask you to trouble yourself,” he stammered, swallowing his own embarrassment, “but to deprive myself of this view on the account of a chore? I can’t allow it.” He leaned closer to better illustrate his point, eyes still fixed on hers. He waggled his eyebrows.  
  
Marinette shut her eyes then, growing impossibly redder, to Adrien’s great satisfaction.  
  
“Well I suppose you’d better polish your own saddle then, hadn’t you?” she asked as she opened them again, her voice remarkably steady. She pressed her index finger to his nose, gently pushing him away. He stepped back immediately, and his victorious grin melted into a fond smile as she gathered some tools from the workbench and went on her way. He was about to call after her with some ill-thought-out farewell when she stumbled over a wayward brush at the entrance of the stables.  
  
Adrien caught her by the elbow, and she fumbled to catch the tools. As she regained her footing, she heaved an exaggerated sigh. Her eyes narrowed as she looked back at him, but he knew she wasn’t irritated at him, or even at her clumsiness—she was just annoyed she’d lost her dramatic exit. His grin widened. If his specialty was flowery language, hers was sweeping away and leaving him to follow.  
  
“Are you alright, my lady?” he asked, smothering a laugh.  
  
“Yes, thank you,” she said tersely, as if she was being forced to, “I guess the ground here is a little… _unstable._ ”  
  
Adrien dropped her elbow as if he’d been burned, eyes shooting wide. She smirked at him again, smug as anything, but this time when she left, Adrien found he didn’t mind ending their encounter at a disadvantage. She’d made a _pun_. A _terrible_ pun.  
  
It was juvenile, an obvious distraction from her blunder, so why did he find it so endearing?  
  
Why was it making his heart beat so fast?  
  
“Oh,” Adrien gasped. “Oh, oh dear.”  
  
Dumbstruck, he only realized he was standing outside the stable gaping like a gargoyle when she came to return her tools and looked at him curiously. Adrien snapped his jaw shut with a squeak and scurried away before she could see his blush.  
  
He retreated to his shack, slamming the door behind him and pressing his back against it as a ward against intruders. Blood roared in his ears and colored his face, which contorted in a myriad of ridiculous expressions as he worked over his dilemma.  
  
Okay. So he had feelings for Marinette.  
  
That wasn’t such a big deal, right? He could be mature about this. He could just walk up to her and tell her that—  
  
Oh. Oh no.  
  
The flirting.  
  
He’d been flirting with her for over a year, with increasingly extreme lines and gestures and poses, and she’d never taken him seriously. She’d been embarrassed, sure, maybe a little exasperated, but never stupefied like he felt now.  
  
Even if she hadn’t taken him seriously, how was he supposed to top that? What could he do to convince her he was serious? Should he even bother? She didn’t seem very impressed with him. In fact, witty banter aside, he wouldn’t be surprised if she found him annoying as all hell.  
  
Adrien groaned, sinking to the floor, his back still pressed against the door. This was a disaster.  
  
He didn’t know what to do with himself.  
  
He spent the next week in a miserable haze, slinking around the farm like a feral cat, bolting at any sign of ‘his’ lady (a sobering sobriquet he found himself reflecting on far too often). When he couldn’t avoid her company, he did his best to avoid eye contact, and kept conversation to a bare minimum, terrified of accidentally giving himself away and losing her forever.  
  
One such evening found him hiding out on the hill that overlooked the pasture, watching the sunset with the bitterness of his self-imposed exile heavy on his mind.  
  
He heard Marinette’s footsteps in the soft grass behind him, and realized he knew her step.  
  
He should leave. He should run down the hill and hide among the sheep.  
  
He closed his eyes. It had been nearly three days since he’d spoken to her, and he found he missed it more than he could have imagined. The sound of her voice, the sparkle in her eyes when she laughed at him, her constant, restless motion. Maybe giving himself away wouldn’t be so bad; he seemed to have already lost her forever.  
  
She sat beside him wordlessly, and after a long moment he opened his eyes to find her watching the sunset. The dying light painted her milky skin a thousand shades, fiery and warm and so familiar it took Adrien’s breath away.  
  
“You’ve been avoiding me,” she said.  
  
Adrien swallowed.  
  
“You’ve been avoiding me and I don’t know why,” she went on, gaze fixed determinedly on the horizon. “I’ve been thinking and thinking, trying to figure it out. If I said something, or did something, or—“  
  
“No,” Adrien broke in, his voice hoarse and creaky. “No, you didn’t do anything.”  
  
“Then why?” she whispered. She still wasn’t looking at him. The sun had set completely, and while its warmth lingered the colors began to drain away. He saw her as she was, pale and uncertain and… heartbroken.  
  
Unthinkingly, he reached out and cupped her cheek, turning her face towards him.  
  
Her eyes were bluer than the sky had ever been.  
  
“I was scared,” he whispered back, “I still am.”  
  
“What are you scared of?” she asked quietly.  
  
He didn’t answer her immediately. He was scared of a lot of things. ‘Losing you,’ sprang to his tongue, but here beside her it didn’t seem like enough. It might be an answer, but it wasn’t what she was asking. Not really.  
  
Adrien had lost so much in his short life. Family, friends—there were times he thought he’d lost his mind. Losing Marinette wasn’t just a possibility, but a certainty. He’d always lose everything, in the end. Even if she loved him, she’d realize her mistake one day and take off like his father, or she’d grow sick and die like his mother, or—or something. He couldn’t help losing her, but maybe he could help how he felt about it. Maybe he could do something to hold his heart together this time.  
  
“Loving you,” he answered finally, when dusk had drawn around them and cast deep blues over the pastures. His hand slid from her cheek, retreating. He almost closed his eyes so he didn’t have to see the anger flash in hers, to watch her rage against him.  
  
To his surprise, no anger came.  
  
“Oh,” she said softly. She looked amazed more than anything, and he realized he had just inadvertently confessed. Well, good. Maybe she’d be disgusted with him and leave. Get it over with quickly. He looked away.  
  
Marinette’s hand was cold against his face as she turned it back to her, the same way he’d turned hers. Her thumb rubbed his cheekbone and he realized he’d been crying at some point—before or after her approach he couldn’t say.  
  
He met her gaze with guilt and fear, choking on his tumultuous feelings. Her eyes were unfathomable, deep and patient and something akin to awed. Adrien shook under the weight of them, pressing his face into her palm without breaking the stare.  
  
She smiled, and it was like the sun breaking through clouds on a rainy day.  
  
“It scares me too,” she admitted. “Loving you. I used to think there was nothing better, then that there was nothing worse. But… with you and me, it doesn’t matter. It’s scary, but we can be scared together. We can be brave, together.”  
  
He trembled under her hand, under her eyes, under her spell.  
  
“Besides,” said Marinette, stroking his cheek with an idle thumb, “I don’t know about you, but I don’t think I could stop loving you if I tried. It’s like… it’d be like trying to stop the sun from setting. I wouldn’t know how to go about it if I wanted to.”  
  
Adrien squeezed his eyes shut. His whole body was shaking; this couldn’t be real, could it? If this was a dream he was going to have some very stern words with his subconscious. He curled inwards to stop the rattling, leaning towards her as he tried to hold himself together.  
  
She lowered her face to keep level with his, and he could sense the weight of her gaze through his eyelids. She was so close that he could feel the warmth of her breath. She smelled like sunset and meadows and cinnamon.  
  
“I love you,” she told him, scarcely above a whisper, and his eyes flew open. She had finally looked away, her gaze lowered as she blushed amaranth in the blue of twilight. Rather than looking embarrassed, she seemed almost defiant, the stubborn set of her jaw practically daring him to argue with quite possibly the best news he’d ever heard.  
  
Adrien tried to speak, but found himself overcome. He pressed his forehead to hers, and her eyes darted back to his. She saw something in his pleading, terrified gaze that softened her immediately.  
  
“I love you,” she repeated, even more softly.  
  
Adrien kissed her.  
  
∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙

“I got you a present.”  
  
“If it’s another dead bird, then—“  
  
“I thought you _liked_ pheasant,” he protested, sitting on the floor beside her. She was sitting at the kitchen table doing the mending, practiced hands guiding the needle with an easy grace Adrien knew she’d deny. If he pointed out to her how beautiful and confident her movements were, she became self-conscious and had been known to prick herself. He settled for admiring her instead, folding his legs neatly underneath himself and watching her nimble fingers.  
  
“I like pheasants in stews, not bleeding on my freshly cleaned table,” she told him, her stern tone somewhat ruined by the smile threatening to overtake her.  
  
“Just carrying it in here had me sneezing up a storm. After I went through all the trouble of catching it, it seemed only fair someone else handle the preparation,” said Adrien haughtily, turning his nose in the air. She pressed it with one finger, tilting his head back so far he overbalanced. Yelping, he leaned back and caught himself, the box his gift was in rattling against the floor.  
  
Marinette’s eyes gleamed. “So it’s not a bird,” she said, voice carefully void of the curiosity he could read in every line of her face.  
  
“I don’t know that you’ve earned a present,” he told her, grinning as he shifted the arm holding the box behind his back. “If you’re so set on rejecting my delicious and allergy-producing offerings, maybe you’re not ready for this either.”  
  
“Keep it then,” she said primly, turning back to her sewing. Adrien startled, leaning forward in confusion. She ignored him, a faint smile still playing across her lips.  
  
“My lady,” he protested, trying to catch her eye, “of course you’ve earned it.”  
  
“And how have I done that?”  
  
She asked like a teacher who already knew the answer. Maybe she did.  
  
“By being the most wonderful girl in the world,” he told her dreamily. She turned pink but still didn’t look at him. “The kindest and cleverest and most beautiful creature in all the land, with patience and wit unmatched. By virtue of your—“  
  
“Slow down before you pull something,” she muttered, now thoroughly blushing.  
  
“But none of those is the reason I got you this,” he said seriously, smiling when she finally spared him a curious glance.  
  
“Then why?”  
  
“Because you’re a terrible farmer,” he told her.  
  
She opened her mouth to retort, but he interrupted her by raising his free hand, grinning, and she rolled her eyes to indicate he could continue.  
  
“You’ve couldn’t tell a scythe from a thresher if your life depended on it, you get distracted talking to the sheep when you’re supposed to be feeding them, I once saw you so busy drawing a bird that you didn’t realize it was eating your lunch, you—“  
  
“There had better be a point to this.”  
  
“—you scrunch up your nose when you’re angry,” said Adrien, “You celebrated the cat’s birthday last year. You taught Cheval how to count. You walk into walls on a regular basis because you’re daydreaming about something or other. You care about everyone and everything, and you do everything you can to make them happy.”  
  
She stared at him. She wasn’t blushing any more, but the tender affection in her eyes gave him the courage to continue.  
  
“You’re a good person, Marinette, and I love you. So I got you a present for no good reason at all.” He held the box out to her with an apologetic smile, and she took it, looking a bit dazed. When she sat staring at him for another minute, he chuckled and opened it for her, revealing her gift: a pair of earrings.  
  
They were simple dark stones, nearly black, but as Marinette turned them over in her hands a scarlet schiller gleamed in the light. She looked up from them after a long moment, staring at Adrien wordlessly.  
  
The unexpected apprehension he saw left him floundering.  
  
“I—I know they aren’t much, but—”  
  
She cut him off with a kiss, gentle where he would have predicted fire, but it left his lips buzzing and head swimming all the same as she pulled away, resting her forehead against his and gracing him with a blinding smile.  
  
“I love you too,” she murmured, “but I don’t have pierced ears.”  
  
“Details, details,” said Adrien breathlessly, leaning back in for another kiss, “I’ll make you a necklace.”  
  
∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙

“I don’t _want_ you to go,” said Adrien, pouting.  
  
“I’ll only be gone two weeks.”  
  
“Fourteen days without my lady,” he whined, draping himself off her shoulders like a rucksack as she continued packing, unaffected by his theatrics. “Fourteen days without your conversation, and your beauty, and your _kisses_. What am I going to do without you, Marinette? Who shall keep me in my place? I’ll turn to a life of crime.”  
  
“And here I thought you already had, stealing my heart like that,” said Marinette, smiling as she kissed the tip of his nose. She flitted around the room like a hummingbird, plucking this and that from her various shelves and drawers and folding it neatly while he clung to her, sagging behind her as she went along.  
  
“Maybe you aren’t a good influence after all,” he declared, turning his face away in mock offense, “stealing kisses like that! Why you ought to be ashamed of yourself, my lady. We’ll be bandits at this rate. I suppose the advantage would be we could just steal fabric from some hapless traveler, instead of sending you gallivanting across the sea like—“  
  
“Adrien,” she interrupted gently, “it won’t be that long. The harvest festival will only be a few days, most of the time I’ll just be traveling. I’ll be bored more than anything. Everything will be okay, I promise.”  
  
He looked away, tightening his hold on her shoulders. He pressed his face into the base of her neck, lips against the thin leather cord of the necklace he’d clumsily assembled for her. She paused in her packing to lay her hands against his where they clutched at his sleeves.  
  
“I’m the only one who knows which fabrics we need, and how to identify them,” she reminded him, “and you need to stay here to manage things without me—if you can.” Adrien, despite being a simple farmboy, did in fact do most of the work on the farm. It didn’t make him feel any better about staying behind.  
  
He smiled at her teasing, but it faltered a moment later.  
  
“I fear I shall never see you again.”  
  
“Of course you will,” she murmured, squeezing his hands.  
  
“But what if something happens to you?”  
  
“Hear this now,” she said sternly, turning in his arms so they were face to face. He straightened, watching her anxiously. “I will always come for you.”  
  
“But how can you be sure?” he whispered.  
  
“This is true love,” she said simply, smiling up at him with such raw certainty that he found himself returning it in spite of himself. “You think this happens every day?”  
  
She wrapped her arms around his waist and kissed him, and he relished in it, trying to hold onto as much of her as he could. It was going to be a long two weeks.  
  
∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙

  
  
  
  
  


Marinette didn’t reach her destination. Her ship was attacked by the Dread Pirate Ladybug, who never left captives alive.  



	2. The Bride and the Courtship

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Several characters are introduced, and an accord is reached.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> honestly i don't think my editor has read this chapter yet so uh. it might get cut entirely later. enjoy it while it lasts

Princess Chloé could have helped being beautiful.

She could have, but would never have dreamed of it, for in her opinion there was no finer qualification of fine breeding than to be as elegant, and graceful, and magnificent as she was.

In theory, the land of Florin was ruled by the King Bourgeois, but in fact, the king was barely hanging on. He was ancient and doddering, and every organ in his body had long since betrayed him. Most of his important decisions regarding Florin had a certain arbitrary quality that bothered anyone who could parse it from his ordinary rambling about long-abolished ordinances and how wonderful his daughter was.

Princess Chloé actually ran things. The only child of King Bourgeois and his late wife, she was the sole heir to the throne, and she acted like it. It was less a sense of entitlement and more a general feeling of being very powerful and important that guided her actions; either way, it was perfectly clear to everyone that knew her that Princess Chloé was not one to be refused. If she wanted something, she would have it.

Mostly, she wanted the adoration of her public, which they were quite happy to supply provided everything was going well. A delicate equilibrium was reached, wherein Princess Chloé would tend to some economical matter or diplomatic occasion, and the people would cheer for her. It may have been a simple matter of inspiration, if she weren’t so prone to sentencing dissenters to the stocks.

Princess Chloé was thin and willowy and liked to wear great sweeping dresses that trailed behind her and billowed impressively in the wind. She stood on balconies and in beams of sunlight whenever possible, and had to hire a second court painter to keep up with her requests for portraits. Where she lacked, she improved. She tended to her appearance like one might tend an especially delicate garden, and her efforts were well worth it: Chloé was easily the fifteenth or sixteenth most beautiful woman in the world, certainly the most beautiful that anybody had ever heard of.

Her lips were painted a perfect red; her blue eyes were lined in black. Her hair was the color of crystallized honey, and was tended by a series of hairwashers and hairdryers and hairdressers, and if she could figure out a way to employ a hairchoreographer, she’d have done it in a heartbeat.

Princess Chloé was not in much of a hurry to be queen. She busied herself with sleeping on silk, eating on gold and being the single most feared and admired woman in Florinese history. Matters of the state were secondary, although she did excel at war, and was fond of hosting extravagant balls for visiting royalty. These balls always ran more like beauty pageants than anything, princes being paraded before Princess Chloé so that she might one day be tempted to marry and produce an heir.

It never worked.

Princess Chloé was, at the very least, consistent. No one, be he prince, duke, or baron, was up to her standards. Oh, they were all rich enough, but what did she care for riches? She had all the money she could dream of, and it wasn’t as if she could marry someone for status—she had that, too. She had everything, and if she were going to go through all the trouble of marrying someone, then they had to be something extraordinary. Besides which, the law only required a single legitimate heir, and until her father succumbed to his age, that was Chloé. She had years in which to find a husband who actually suited her exceptionally refined taste.

The Countess was Princess Chloé’s only confidant. Her last name was Rossi, but no one needed to use it—she was the only Countess in the country, the title having been bestowed by the Princess as a birthday present some years before.

The Countess was tall and fierce and had a tendency to stand behind the Princess with impeccable posture and stare people down. Her eyes were a flashing chartreuse against the warm sepia of her face, which was made up less than the princess’s, but enough to enhance her sharp and angular features. She spoke more when away from Princess Chloé’s side—while attending her, the Countess preferred to let her speak, unless she had something of great importance to add.

Princess Chloé was in the midst of a hairbrushing when the business of the King’s health made its ultimate intrusion. Her hair was shining and softer than clouds, glowing in the midafternoon light as an attendant ran a brush delicately across its surface. From the doorway, Countess Rossi’s voice interrupted. “There is news,” the Countess said.

From her chair, the Princess replied, “Cannot it wait?”

“For how long?” asked the Countess.

Princess Chloé dismissed her attendant.

“Now, what is all this,” demanded the Princess, swiveling in her chair to face her friend with a perfect scowl.

“Your father has had his annual physical,” the Countess said, “I have the report.”

“And?”

“Your father is dying.”

“Drat!” said the Princess. “That means I shall have to get married.”

∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙

 Four of them met in the great council room of the castle. Princess Chloé, her confidant, Countess Rossi, her father, aging King Bourgeois, and her beleaguered butler, whom she simply called ‘Butler,’ to save time.

“All right,” the Princess began when they were all assembled. “Who do I marry? Let’s pick a groom and get it done.”

“No prince is good enough for my darling daughter,” said the King, huffing and folding his arms like a sulking child.

“Well obviously,” said the Princess, tossing her hair over her shoulder, “but as you’re on your way out I haven’t much choice, have I?”

“There may be some hope,” said the Butler, as he tried to coax the King to uncross his arms and sit up straight in his sunken armchair. “We’ve only just changed miracle men. There have been some improvements to his health.”

“You mean you fired the old one? I thought he was the only one left.”

“No, we found another one up in the mountains and he’s quite extraordinary. Old, of course, but who wants a young miracle man?”

“No miracle man is good enough for my precious princess,” mumbled the King. The Butler patted his arm consolingly.

“A woman of your importance couldn’t marry just _any_ prince,” said the Butler to the Princess.

“True, true,” said Princess Chloé. She sighed. Deeply. “I suppose that means that Guilder boy.”

“That would certainly be a perfect match politically,” Countess Rossi allowed. Guilder, the country that lay just across Florin Channel (In Guilder, they put it differently; for them, Florin was the country on the other side of the Channel of Guilder) had only one heir, a prince whom Chloé had never met. The two countries had stayed alive over the centuries mainly by waging war against one another. There had been the Olive War, the Tuna Fish Discrepancy, which almost bankrupted both nations, the Roman Rift, which did send them both into insolvency, only to be followed by the Discord of the Emeralds, in which they both got rich again, chiefly by banding together for a brief period and robbing everybody within sailing distance.

Given their historically rocky relationship, Chloé had never seen fit to invite their prince to one of her royal balls. She realized now that she didn’t know much about him at all. She began to pace.

“What does he look like?” she asked the Butler, “I don’t care so much about personality, just so long as he won’t be some kind of embarrassment.”

“I saw him several years ago,” he replied, “He seemed charming, though hardly muscular. I would describe him as more of a knitter than a doer—but again, charming.”

“Oh, come out with it Butler—is he handsome or not?”

The Butler hesitated to answer. This was enough for Princess Chloé. She stopped pacing.

“Forget about Guilder. I’ll conquer it sometime. I’ve been wanting to ever since I was a child anyway. You’ll just have to find someone else.”

“Who?” asked the Butler, a little nervously.

“Find me somebody, he should just look nice, that’s all.”

Then Countess stepped forward. “You want someone who looks nice, but what if he’s a commoner?”

“The commoner the better,” Princess Chloé replied, pacing again.

“What if he’s poor? What if he doesn’t know how to dance, or anything about attending balls?” the Countess went on.

“I don’t care if he can’t spell,” the Princess said. Suddenly she stopped and faced them all.

“I’ll tell you what I want,” she began then. “I want someone who is so beautiful that when you see him you say, ‘Wow, that Chloé must be some kind of woman to have a husband like that.’ Search the country, search the world if you must, but find him!”

Countess Rossi could only smile. “He is already found,” she said.

∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙

It was dawn when the two horsemen reined in at the hilltop. Countess Rossi rode a splendid black horse, large, perfect, and powerful. The Princess rode one of her whites. It made Rossi’s mount seem like a plow-puller.

“He delivers milk in the mornings,” Countess Rossi said.

“And he is truly-without-question-no-possibility-of-error beautiful?”

“He was something of a mess when I saw him,” the Countess admitted. “There had been rumors of an extraordinarily handsome young man in these parts, and I saw it only fitting to follow up on them. He was a bit dirty, yes, but the potential was overwhelming.”

“A farmhand.” The Princess ran the words across her tongue as if they had a sour taste. “I don’t know that I could wed one of them even under the best conditions. People might snicker that he was the best I could do.”

“True,” the Countess admitted. “If you prefer, we can ride back to Florin City without waiting.”

“We’ve come this far,” the Princess said. “We might as well wai—” Her voice quite simply died. “I’ll take him,” she managed, finally, as Adrien rode slowly by below them.

“No one will snicker, I think,” said the Countess.

“I must court him now,” said the Princess. “Leave us alone for a minute.” She rode the white expertly down the hill.

Adrien had never seen such a beast. Or such a rider.

“I am your Princess and you will marry me,” Chloé announced as she reached him.

Adrien whispered, “I am your servant and I refuse.”

“I am your Princess and you cannot refuse.”

“I am your loyal servant and I just did.”

“Refusal means death.”

“Kill me then.”

“I am your Princess and I am not that bad—how could you rather be dead than married to me?”

“Because,” said Adrien, “marriage involves love, and... I have loved, and I know that I will never love another.”

“Love?” said Princess Chloé. “Who mentioned love? Not me, I can tell you. Look: There must always be an heir to the throne of Florin. That’s me. Once my father dies, there won’t be an heir, just a queen. That’s me again. When that happens, I’ll marry and have children until one of them is deemed fit to rule. Do you make good money on this farm of yours?”

“I work for room and board, Your Highness. My employers are very dear to me, and treat me like a son. I’d work for free if they’d let me.”

Princess Chloé did her best to turn her disgusted grimace into a smile. Working unnecessarily, and for free? This boy was lucky he was so handsome.

“Well,” she told him, “either you marry me, become the richest and most powerful man in a thousand miles, provide me an heir, and set your employers up for life, or you can die in terrible pain in the very near future. Make up your own mind.”

“I’ll never love you.”

“I wouldn’t want it if I had it.”

“Then by all means, let us marry.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh and in case you were wondering why Adrien is a farmhand instead of Marinette--it's nothing to do with preserving the dynamic, I just really didn't want to kill Sabine and Tom. Buttercup's parents actually die in the book too but. My story now. 


	3. The Announcement

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adrien bemoans his fate, and stops to help some travelers who turn out to be a bit more than he bargained for.

Five years later, the main square of Florin City was filled as never before to hear the announcement of the great Princess Chloé’s groom-to-be.

Citizens stood packed like sardines, jostling for space, as children clambered onto high walls and fountains for a better vantage point. The city’s colors flew from banners around the square, overlaid with the royal family’s own coat of arms. A crowned golden lion, armed and langued in scarlet above a single white fleur de lis, all on an azure shield. Against the muted blue and red it stood out, catching the eye.

A series of trumpets interrupted the crowd’s bustle, and they fell silent as the aging king and his daughter appeared before them, regal on the balcony overlooking the square.

“My people,” said the Princess, her voice carrying across her hushed subjects, “a month from now, our country will have its 500th anniversary. To celebrate that celebration, I shall, on that sundown, take for my husband a gentleman who was once a commoner like yourselves. But perhaps you will not find him so common now. Would you like to meet him?”

The crowd roared its assent, eager to see the man who would one day be their king.

“My people,” she continued, a wide smile splitting her face as she gestured with a sweeping arm, “The Prince Adrien.”

Adrien stepped into the sunlight at his cue, quiet and polite as he nodded at those nearest him. The people murmured amongst themselves before bowing in his direction, a gesture of fealty he took no reassurance from.

He looked at the princess up on her balcony. Her smile tightened when she met his eyes. Adrien looked away. He knew if he held her gaze he would be unable to maintain his composure, something he desperately needed to show the people he possessed.

The princess resumed speaking, and as she reclaimed her citizens’ attentions Adrien slipped back into the shadowed doorway whence he’d emerged. A servant shut the door behind him with a sympathetic smile, which Adrien tried to return. When he could produce only a twisted approximation he gave up trying entirely, letting his face fall and showing the servant his thanks with a grateful wave.

He rushed to the stables, desperate to feel the thunder of hooves, the wind in his hair, anything at all. Cheval was already saddled and waiting for him, and seemed to sense his rush. He had scarcely placed a foot in the stirrup before they set off like a bolt of black lightning, tearing across the countryside with reckless abandon.

Adrien’s eyes burned with the ghost of tears that wouldn’t come, no matter how he yearned for them. He hadn’t cried in years; nothing had come close to inspiring the strength of emotion required, not since he had received the news of Marinette’s murder.

Feelings had largely deserted him, in fact—when he felt at all it was either an acute misery or unrestrained hysteria, alarming those around him even more than his brooding silence. There was seldom a catalyst, but today he couldn’t even narrow it down. The frustration of his engagement, the ache of missing the one he had _wanted_ to marry, the futility of his situation, of being trapped and alone in a society he felt like an accessory to—it all boiled within him, threatening to overflow.

The past few years had been long and dull and did nothing to alleviate Adrien’s condition. First, it had apparently been illegal for Chloé to marry a commoner, so after a great deal of arguing and squabbling with various nobles, he had been made Marquis of Carabas, a small march of land stuck to the side of King Bourgeois’s holdings like a burr. It had gone without a local ruler for some time, following an unfortunate incident with an ogre, so installing Adrien as Marquis was a blessedly simple process.

Then there had been the endless training, learning when to bow, whom to bow to, and how deeply to bow. Beyond simple etiquette, most of his training had revolved around the core tenet of ‘sit still and look pretty’. While his listlessness lent itself well to these pursuits, it had done little to encourage affection between Adrien and the Princess, who found him ‘depressing,’ and preferred to admire him in portraiture—a third court painter had to be hired specifically to effectively disguise Adrien’s emptiness.

The Countess, who often condescended to preside over Adrien’s lessons, referred to him (both to his face and in mixed company) as a doll, which some took to be a compliment. She and Adrien both knew what she meant by it: beautiful and perfect, but motionless until directed, with dead eyes that shone too bright in a painted face.

Adrien did not like the Countess.

As his horse slowed to a more leisurely pace, Adrien struggled to pull the pieces of himself back together. He straightened in his saddle, stroking Cheval’s neck with an idle hand to ground himself.

They were in a copse of aspen trees, golden leaves shivering in a breeze too high for the pair to feel. Sunlight filtered through them in a dancing haze, giving the woods an ethereal quality that further helped Adrien’s state of mind. He took a series of deep breaths, trying to enjoy the scenery, when he saw something peculiar.

Three people stood at the side of the road, looking distressed. They were a motley group, in what appeared to be costumes of some kind. Two looked to be about his age, a boy and girl, while the third was much older. The younger man was truly massive, his head reaching Adrien’s shoulder, even mounted. The girl carried a sword, but it was the only weapon between the three, and remained sheathed. Adrien slowed his horse further, finally coming to a stop before them, curious and concerned.

“A word, my lord,” said the oldest of the three, his voice deep and severe. He stood ramrod straight, his arms folded behind his back, further distinguishing him from his more casual companions. He was wearing purple and silver, a cowl covering most of his face, and a brooch sparkling at his throat. Adrien inclined his head, inviting him to continue.

“We are but poor, lost circus performers. Is there a village nearby?”

“There’s nothing nearby,” said Adrien, surprised, “not for miles.”

The younger man approached him then, expressionless. Adrien frowned in confusion as he reached up, and had only a moment’s comprehension before the older man said,

“Then there will be no one to hear you scream.”

 There was a pinch at his neck, and the world went black.

∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙

Papillon, as he insisted on being called, was not a patient man. As his companions made their ship ready to sail, he directed them harshly, pacing on the bank with one eye on their unconscious prisoner.

“You know, you _could_ help,” said the girl, sarcastic as she hoisted the sail.

“I will not be spoken to with that tone, Lady—”

“Oh, no. Keep your weird ‘stage name’ to yourself. Unlike you two I happen to like my name. It’s Alya Césaire, or it’s nothing.”

“It’s not that I don’t _like_ mine,” protested the third member of their party, a young man who was (most of the time) named Nino. “It was about building _backstory,_ Alya. How were we supposed to be convincing as circus performers with nothing to draw on?” 

“We had to pretend for all of ten seconds,” she returned, gesturing to their captive, “He didn’t even acknowledge the circus story. He might have even been less likely to approach a bunch of weirdos in costume, you don’t—”

“That’s enough,” said Papillon, and the look on his face was enough to silence her, though not enough to prevent her agitated sigh. Papillon set about disheveling Adrien’s stallion, affixing a torn scrap of fabric to the joint beneath the saddle.

“What is that you’re ripping?” asked Alya, recovering almost immediately from being chastised.

“It’s fabric from the uniform of an army officer of Guilder.”

“Who’s Guilder?” asked Nino.

“The country across the sea,” said Papillon, swatting at the now thoroughly agitated steed, who took off at once. “The sworn enemy of Florin.

“Once the horse reaches the castle, the fabric will make the princess suspect the Guilderians have abducted her love. When she finds his body dead on the Guilder frontier, her suspicions will be totally confirmed.”

“Whoa. You never said anything about killing anyone,” said Nino, apparently uneasy at the prospect.

“I’ve hired you to help me start a war. It’s a prestigious line of work, with a long and glorious tradition,” said Papillon, frowning sternly as he swept up the gangplank.

“I just don’t think it’s right, killing an innocent kid.”

“The less you think, the happier I’ll be,” Papillon hissed, rounding on the younger man. Nino, though several heads taller and almost twice as wide, backed up a few nervous paces. “I am the brains of this operation, and you will _not_ question me again.”

“I agree with Nino,” Alya piped up, leaning against the railing. She seemed quite at ease with the growing frustration of their employer. Papillon spun on his heel, furious, but before he could explode at her she added, “The whole reason he stopped was to help us. Besides, look at him. He’s adorable.”

“What happens to him is not truly your concern,” Papillon growled, fist at his temple like he was developing a headache. “ _I_ will kill him. And remember this, _never_ forget this: When I found you, you were so lost you couldn’t find the ground you were standing on, chasing ‘justice’ like a drunken bloodhound! And _you,”_ he spat, turning back to Nino, “Friendless, brainless, helpless, hopeless! Do you want me to send you back to where you were? Alone, unemployed, universally reviled?”

“No,” Nino croaked. Alya crossed the deck to lay a comforting hand on his shoulder (managing to reach as high as his armpit), glaring at Papillon, who had busied himself securing Adrien’s ropes.

“Don’t mind him,” she told Nino sternly. She didn’t lower her voice, but Papillon never thought their conversations were worth listening to. “He doesn’t know your potential any better than they did. You’re worth way more than he’d have you believe.”

“Is that so?” Nino asked, hoisting the anchor with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes.

“Yes,” answered Alya, firm and confident. “You can write a rap about him when he goes to sleep. I’ll write it down for you.”

Nino brightened considerably at the prospect.

“Thanks, Alya.”

“You’re welcome, Bubbler.”

“God damn it, it was for _backstory.”_

∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙

The first thing Adrien became aware of was a hideous rocking sensation, churning his stomach unpleasantly as his other senses came online.

Cold and weathered wood against his cheek. What felt like mist clinging to the ends of his hair. Rope tied tightly but clumsily around his wrists. Whoever had restrained him had put more of an emphasis on quantity than quality, and he set about working the knots undone before he opened his eyes.

It was the dead of night, the full moon overhead, half hidden behind clouds. He was on a boat, being manned by the ‘circus performers’ from earlier. The girl sat at the helm, looking behind them over her shoulder, while carrying on an obviously distracted conversation with the giant who had knocked Adrien out with two fingers. The older man was watching Adrien like a hawk, clearly aware he was awake.

“We’ll reach the cliffs by dawn,” he said. Adrien wasn’t sure if he was the party being addressed, but narrowed his eyes rebelliously just in case.

“Which cliffs?” he asked conversationally. His throat was dry, and his chapped lips threatened to crack when he opened them. The older man was still wearing his costume, and his brooch sparkled in the flickering light of the lantern.

“You’ll see,” said the man. He turned to the helm, apparently irritated with the girl’s constant glances backwards. “Why are you doing that?” he demanded.

“To make sure nobody is following us,” said the girl.

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“You know,” Adrien interrupted, tone still casual, “despite what you seem to think, you will be caught. I don’t really see that trial going well for you.”

“Of all the necks on this ship, Highness, the one you should worry about is yours,” said the man. His face darkened as he said it, and the promise in his voice was almost enough to inspire a thrill of fear. But this was Adrien, who currently had only two emotions to draw on, and it was all he could do to swallow a hoot of laughter. Somehow he didn’t think that would go over well with his ridiculously dressed abductor.

“Hey, Papillon. You’re sure nobody is following us?” asked the girl.

Adrien clamped his jaw shut, biting his lips. Hysteria, while not _un_ familiar, would only make things worse. Even if their leader was apparently called ‘butterfly’. He had been kidnapped by two kids and a butterfly.

“As I have said,” said ‘Papillon’ through gritted teeth, “it would be absolutely ridiculous. No one from Guilder knows what we’ve done, and no one from Florin could have gotten here so fast.” He crossed his arms, a self-satisfied smile dying on his lips as he paused.

“Out of curiosity, why do you ask?”

“Oh, it’s nothing. Just somebody following us.”

“ _What?”_ Papillon barked, crossing the deck. Adrien, seizing his chance, wriggled out of the ropes, climbing silently to his feet while his kidnappers were distracted.

There was a small craft, slightly smaller than their own, about a league behind them.

“It’s probably just some local fisherman, out for a pleasure cruise,” said Papillon, though he didn’t sound as if he believed it.

“At night. Through eel-infested waters,” said Alya, smiling brightly as she agreed with him. Papillon shot her a disgusted look. He had just opened his mouth to respond when there was a huge splash behind them.

“What—he—! Go after him!” Papillon yelled, rushing to the railing to look after the escapee.

“At night? Through eel-infested waters?” asked Alya.

“I can’t swim,” claimed Nino.

“Of, for—veer left! _Left!”_

Adrien coughed. The water was freezing, sapping the strength from his limbs, which had already been stiff from disuse. It swirled around him, black against the moonlit sky, trying to drag him under. His hair was plastered to his face, and he could see his breath whenever he gasped for air. As he struck out for the ship they’d been discussing, a sudden wailing rang out.

His blood ran so cold the water felt like a warm bath.

“Do you know what that sound is, Highness?” asked Papillon from over the prow of his own vessel. “Those are the shrieking eels of Florin Channel. Unless I’m mistaken—and I am never mistaken—you grew up near the channel.”

 Adrien looked over his shoulder at the boat as he took his next breath. How did Papillon know where he grew up? Did he have some kind of mercenary dossier?

“It’s common knowledge that you used to be a farmhand, but few farmhands are confident enough in their swimming to risk the distance between these ships—and even fewer who use that particular stroke.”

 _What a creepy thing to keep track of,_ thought Adrien, continuing his bid towards freedom.

“Children raised near Florin Channel are all told the same story, so they won’t wander into the deeper water,” said Papillon. His voice had a terrible softness to it. “They’re told the eels were mourners, orphans and widows, those left behind when loved ones died at sea. They’re told that if they stray too close to the eels, or too far from the shore, their souls will be taken to fill the void in those empty ophidian hearts. Do you know why you were told this, Highness?”

In point of fact, the version Adrien had been told had gone, ‘filling the void in _hollow_ hearts,’ which frankly, he preferred to his kidnapper’s pretentious embellishments, but this editorial digression was interrupted by a second wail, nearer than the first, and he found himself distracted.

“They told you that because it’s more likely to dissuade children than ‘you’ll be eaten alive by blood-addled apex predators who shriek at one another to claim first rights to human flesh’.”

Which was true enough, Adrien supposed. His father had told him something quite similar as a child, and he’d been so excited to fight the eels and have an adventure that he’d nearly drowned the very next day. Somehow now, as an adult, attempting to span a third of the channel in the dead of night, surrounded by the beasts, the sentiment was less inspiring.

“If you come back now,” said Papillon, “I give you my word as a gentleman and assassin that you shall die totally without pain. I assure you, you will get no such offer from the eels.”

The wailing seemed to come from all around him. Adrien stopped swimming towards the other ship, arms straining as he spun in the water, looking for the source of the sound. It was a terrible, gut-wrenching cacophony, like the screams of a grieving mother. It clawed at Adrien from the inside, nauseating him far worse than his seasickness had, piercing his chest like a physical sensation.

His muscles seized as he felt a lithe, slippery body against his fingertips.

The shrieking grew louder.

Adrien thrashed in the water, as if he could fend off the sound. The fear of the eels was nothing to the visceral feeling of the scream ripping through him. His heart was in his throat, choking him almost as much as the seawater he couldn’t seem to keep out of his mouth.

A second eel pressed itself against his back as it slid by, and Adrien fell to coughing, trying desperately to expel the foul-tasting water, to rid himself of anything that had touched these creatures.

The next shriek came directly in his ear, and he felt teeth brush his temple, razor sharp and so numerous that even when he jerked away he could feel the blood pouring from the scratch they’d left.

It was so loud.

The horrible noise was all around him, drowning him, and he found himself wishing he could drown on the water instead.

As an eel charged towards him, shrieking like a banshee, baring its fangs, he squeezed his eyes shut and thought desperately, _at least it will end—_

A massive hand closed around the scruff of his neck, hauling him effortlessly out of the water.

Retching the contents of his stomach and a good deal of seawater onto the deck, Adrien gasped for breath. He was rattled and shaking, his clothes clinging to him and sopping wet, but back in the safety of his murderers. A rough wool blanket was wrapped around his shoulders, and he was pulled to his feet by surprisingly gentle arms.

Teeth chattering, he peered up at the giant who had fished him from the jaws of death.

He patted Adrien on the back with unsurprising strength. It hurt, but Adrien found himself glad of it—his system needed a bit of a shock. He rubbed at his face and head with the corner of the blanket, trying to decide if it was okay to thank someone who was planning on killing you later. His cut stung against the coarse fabric, but his blood was warm against his frozen skin.

“I think he’s getting closer,” said the girl, still perched at the helm.

“He’s _no concern of ours,”_ said Papillon, “Sail on!”

He watched Adrien as the giant helped their soaking prisoner to the deck. Adrien curled against the side of the ship, leaning his head against the railing and wrapping the blanket tightly around his quaking body.

“I suppose you think you’re brave, don’t you?” asked Papillon, disgusted.

“Only compared to some,” Adrien whispered, and closed his eyes.

∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙

Sunrise found Adrien only marginally warmer, though he had mostly dried off. He’d tried to sleep, but had been tormented by dreams of Marinette, the sea, and the screaming.

He would never forget that screaming.

So he’d passed a fitful night, praying to whoever cared to listen that Marinette had died far from the sight of those hideous, monstrous creatures. The giant had sat with him a while after a particularly vivid nightmare, and he worried he may have been crying out in his sleep, but none of his captors said anything. He dozed until the warmth of the sun began to reach him, and cliffs towered overhead.

“Look,” said the girl, “He’s gaining! I wonder if he’s using the same wind we’re using.”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Papillon, “He’s too late! Not that he’s following us; in fact, this must have been his destination all along: The Cliffs of Insanity!” He gestured to the looming cliffs with sweeping arm movements, and following it through, kicked the giant into wakefulness.

Adrien thought privately that Papillon was prone to theatrics.

“Only Nino is strong enough to scale the cliffs at this point,” he said to the ship at large, with a fiendish glee. “Even if he were following us, he’d have to sail for hours until he found a harbor, to say nothing of the time to track us from there.”

The tide bucked and roared against the cliffs, and it was only in the shelter of a small cove that they were able to disembark. Though there was a thin border of gravelly sand, for the most part even this half-shelter was surrounded by cliffs that Adrien had to crane his neck backwards to look at. He couldn’t see the top. A thick rope hung beside them, wider than his forearm.

Ocean water thundered against the rocks, squelching against pits in their surface, spraying everything with a fine layer of mist and salt. Birds wheeled overhead, squalling to one another as they fought over what fish they could catch so early in the morning. The sun had not yet reached this narrow berth, and Adrien shivered in the frigid morning air as he watched the light flashing on the sea. The girl tightened the blanket around his shoulders as she darted around securing a scant few supplies to the members of their party.

The giant—Nino, apparently—was fastening some kind of harness around himself. Adrien, whose wrists had been retied by the girl (who apparently knew a little more about knots) was slipped into a loop of some kind of hide. As he realized what was about to take place, he clutched at the fabric of Nino’s shirt.

It wasn’t that he was afraid of heights; to be frank, he was more concerned about being strapped to his murderer with bound hands than he was about the climb before them. Still, his empty stomach clenched uncomfortably at the prospect.

They started up the rope as the prow of their pursuer’s vessel appeared at the mouth of the cove. Nino had made it high enough that by the time they had leapt to the beach, all that was distinguishable was a red blur. 

“Huh,” said the girl, peering down from her perch on Nino’s side, opposite Adrien, “he’s climbing the rope. And he’s super fast. He might actually catch us at this rate.”

“That is inconceivable,” said Papillon. Though his voice was calm, his face was contorted beneath its cowl, harried, though not afraid. Not yet. He snarled in Nino’s face. “Faster!”

“I thought I _was_ going faster.”

“What did I say about thinking?! When I say climb faster, you _climb faster!_ You do _not_ question me! You were not hired to estimate your own speed or strength! You were hired to _use_ it!”

“Well, I’m carrying three people,” Nino wheezed sullenly, “and he’s got only himself.”

“I do not accept excuses,” said Papillon, “I’ll just have to find myself a new giant, that’s all.”

“You can always climb the cliff yourself,” said the girl, dry as ever.

After more than a little griping from Papillon, whose patience with the girl’s sarcasm was apparently wearing thin, and some half-hearted pleading for peace from Nino, they reached the top of the cliff. Immediately, Papillon launched himself at the rope, sawing at the fibers with a serrated knife he drew from the shoulder bag the girl had slung over him.

Adrien lay the side of his face against the dirt, taking deep breaths and vowing he’d never fail to appreciate the feeling of solid land beneath him. Between the rocking of the boat and the rippling movements of Nino’s body, he hadn’t been truly still since his time in the courtyard. If it weren’t for the irritating buzz of the knife against the rope, he could have fallen asleep right there.

With an audible _snap!_ the rope gave out, whizzing as it plunged over the edge of the cliff, whipping wildly against the rocks.

Adrien pushed himself into a sitting position with one shoulder and his bound hands, while Nino and the girl peered over the clifftop to ascertain their victory.

“He’s got pretty good arms,” Nino remarked, sounding mildly surprised.

“He didn’t fall?” Papillon yelled, springing to the edge, “Inconceivable!”

“You know, that’s the second time you’ve used that word,” said the girl, shooting him a sideways glance, “I don’t think it means what you think it means.”

Papillon looked like he wanted to push _her_ off the cliff.

 “Holy shit,” she continued, not looking at him, “I think that’s a girl.”

“She’s climbing,” said Nino, who Adrien was now positive found this all very impressive.

“It couldn’t be the Princess, could it? Not this soon?”

“Whoever she is, she’s obviously seen us with the Prince and must therefore die.” Papillon scowled over the edge for another few moments before jerking a finger from Nino to Adrien. “You, carry him.”

He turned to the girl with a look so commanding that Adrien thought he must have practiced it in front of a mirror, and went on, “We’ll head straight for the Guilder frontier. If she falls, fine—if not, the sword.”

The girl twisted her hands together, an eager smile spreading across her face.

“Be careful, Alya,” said Nino, hoisting Adrien over one shoulder like a sack of potatoes. Adrien sighed and resigned himself to the ride. “People in masks cannot be trusted.”

Alya smiled at him, patting the elbow that wasn’t supporting Adrien’s weight. “Right back at you,” she said, jerking her head after their leader, who was adjusting his silver cowl.

Nino grimaced and followed after Papillon without another word.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> maybe not the BEST stopping point but dude, look. it was getting too long. good news is this means the next chapter is already almost done


	4. Alya

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter draws really heavily on the book so double disclaimer: i own nothing

Alya bounced on her heels, craning her neck over the edge of the cliff to check her adversary’s progress. She still had a long ways to go. With a frustrated huff, Alya turned to instead survey the terrain.

It had once been some kind of lookout post, a stubby castle made of stone with a broad tower that had long since collapsed in on itself. At one time it may have been quite an intimidating sight, poised at the edge of the towering cliffs, but now it lay in ruins, crumbling into the merciless sea and bowed under the weight of encroaching plants. The shelter of the walls had allowed trees to grow in a dense, winding copse, where outside the collapsing shell of the structure they had been beaten into oblivion by the harsh elements.

Within the boundaries of the battlements, Alya may as well have been in the middle of a forest. Though a fair portion of the western wall had fallen into the sea to reveal a huge swath of early morning sky,  everything else was a tangle of leaves and vines and broad trees, growing near enough together that the underbrush had been suffocated. The ground was a dangerous jumble of loose stones and leaf litter, and twisted roots had grown in bizarre patterns to accommodate the now-shattered pavement. In the morning dew the leaves lay flat, which was fortunate—if there was one thing Alya hated, it was fighting on noisy ground.

She peered over the edge of the cliff again. Their pursuer was still hauling herself up, slow as ever. The woman in red had to climb almost a quarter of the cliffs with her bare hands, an arduous process that meant there was nothing to do but wait. 

Alya hated waiting.

Heaving a tremendous sigh, she decided to try to entertain herself, pulling from her scabbard her great, her only, love:

Trixx, the six-fingered sword.

∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙

On the eastern shores of Martinique, on the Caravelle Peninsula, nestled in a nigh inaccessible portion of the capesterre, was the village of Annabelle. It was very small and the air was always clear. That was all you could say that was good about Annabelle: terrific air—you could see for miles.

Unfortunately, there was no work, the dogs overran the streets, and there was never enough food. The air, while clear enough, was also too hot in daylight, and absolutely freezing at night. The vegetation was diverse, but low-growing, leaving the hills shorn in stark contrast to the lush inland forests. The prevailing trade wind liked to beat against the bare coastline, stinging at eyes and pulling at hair.

It was here in Annabelle that Alya was born.

Her father had died shortly before her birth, along with a great many of the other villagers, in some sort of plague or battle or calamity (accounts varied). She was the oldest of the remaining village youngsters. This meant she had a certain amount of responsibility, and was more often than not reining in a gaggle of slightly smaller children. She was always just a trifle hungry, and never had any time to herself.

She was fantastically happy.

This was owing almost entirely to her mother. Marlena Césaire was crotchety and impatient and absent-minded and never smiled deliberately, and Alya loved her. She would spend whatever free time she had trailing behind Marlena with an adoring smile, chattering mindlessly about this and that.

Marlena Césaire made swords. For the most part, it was repair work—simple sharpenings and polishings and fixing dents and bends here and there. She was of course good at her job, but Marlena was not the type to suffer fools, and would frequently turn away any customer who drew her (expansive) ire, which was perhaps not a very good business tactic. She made enough to feed herself and Alya, but nothing extravagant or remarkable.

Sometimes—not often, mind you, maybe once a year, maybe less—a request would come in for a weapon that was more than even the most gifted metalsmith could accomplish. Fortunately, Marlena Césaire was far more than gifted.

It was rare that any know of Marlena, or her talents. Only the exceptionally rich could afford such information, and only the exceptionally desperate would be so determined to seek out the weapon they wanted.

More often than not, it went the same way.

A nobleman on some great impressive steed, or sequestered in some great impressive carriage, would ride up through the twisting forests, over the rocky hills, past the buffeting wind of the ridge, and find their way to Annabelle.

“Ho there,” the nobleman would call out to Marlena, ignoring Alya and the flock of greatly impressed village children that mobbed him.

Marlena would grumble.

“You must be the great Marlena Césaire. I wish to commission you to make a sword. It is to be jewel-encrusted at the handle and the jewels are to spell out the name of my present mistress and—”

“No.”

That single word and that alone. But it was enough. When Marlena Césaire said “no” it meant nothing else but.

Alya, busy shooing away the other children, knew what would happen now: The noble would use his charm.

“No.”

The noble would use his wealth.

“No.”

He would beg, entreat, promise, pledge.

“No.”

Insults. Threats.

“No.”

Finally, genuine tears.

“No.”

“WHY WON’T YOU?”

“A simple sword with jewels embedded in the handle? Any metalsmith could make this for you. Why come to me?”

“I have heard that you are the best—”

“Come to me sometime with a challenge. Once, just once, I wish someone would ride up and say, ‘Marlena, I need a sword for an eighty year old man to fight a duel,’ and I would embrace them and cry, ‘Yes!’ because to make a sword for an eighty year old man to survive a duel, that would be something.

“Because the sword would have to be strong enough to win, yet light enough not to tire his weary arm. I would have to use my all to perhaps find an unknown metal, strong but very light, or devise a different formula for a known one, mix some bronze with some iron and some air in a way ignored for a thousand years. I would kiss their feet for an opportunity like that. But to make a stupid sword with stupid jewels in the form of stupid initials so some stupid man can thrill his stupid mistress, no. That, I will not do.”

“For the last time I ask you. Please.”

“For the last time I tell you, I am sorry. No. I will direct you to an even more accomplished sword maker than myself, one who is far more polite.”

And the noblemen, while accustomed to getting their way, would always relent. The promise—however false—of an even greater sword maker was more than any of them could resist. Marlena would send them to her friend Caline in the city, and they would get their sword, and be absolutely delighted with it, and forget all about the crotchety woman in Annabelle who would not make them a weapon.

She would occasionally actually produce a weapon, when things were especially hard, but always she would insist to Caline that her involvement be kept a secret. Somehow, it always was. The rumors persisted, but her friend’s renown grew, and Marlena was able to fund another year.

“Why don’t you ever tell them it was you, Maman?” Alya would ask, after the blade had been retrieved and the payment delivered.

 “Because, my darling Alya, my friend Caline in Saint-Pierre has become very famous and very rich, and so she should be, because she makes wonderful weapons. But she must also make them for any fool who happens along. I am poor, and no one knows me in all the world except you and her, so I do not have to suffer fools. At least, not for long.”

“But you are an artist,” Alya would protest.

“No. Not yet. A craftswoman only. But I dream to be an artist. I pray that someday, if I work with enough care, if I am very lucky, I will make a weapon that is a work of art. Call me an artist then, and I will answer.”

And that was the way of life before Trixx.

Alya remembered exactly the moment it began. They were making lunch—her mother always, from the time she was six, let her help with the cooking, and they would spend delighted hours gathering ingredients together—when a heavy knocking came on the hut door. “Open up,” a sharp voice came, “and be quick about it.”

Alya’s mother opened the door. “Yes?” she asked.

“I have heard that you are a sword maker,” came the sharp voice, “An unrivaled sword maker, of unparalleled talent and skill. Is this true?”

“If only it were,” Marlena replied, “but I have no such skill. I am a simple smith, and work mostly in repair. Perhaps if you had a dagger blade that was dulling, I might be able to help—but anything more is sadly beyond me.”

Alya took their lunch off the fire, moving silently behind her mother and peeking out around her familiar frame.

The sharp voice belonged to a sharp-looking woman, with dark skin and darker hair, and pale eyes that flashed like fire. She was young, little more than a girl, somewhere between fifteen and twenty. She was perched atop an elegant white horse, whose legs were stained with dust from the trip.

A noblewoman clearly, but Alya could not tell the country.

Often, she had heard grownups describe young women as “blossoming” or “growing into their skin,” but looking at this noble, Alya thought perhaps here was an exception to that picture. Her angular features and sour expression gave the impression of someone who had been carved from a block of clay or marble, a fierce and beautiful visage chiseled forcefully on.

“I want the greatest sword since Excalibur to be made for me.”

“I wish you luck,” said Marlena, beginning to close the door. “If you will excuse me, our lunch is almost ready, and—”

“I do not give you permission to move. Stay exactly where you are, and do not shift an inch, or face my considerable wrath.”

Marlena’s hand tightened around the doorframe. She did not move.

“There are rumors,” the noblewoman went on, “that nestled inland on the Caravelle Peninsula there lives a genius. The greatest sword maker in all the world.”

“She visits here sometimes—that must be your mistake. She is only a friend, and she lives in Saint-Pierre.”

“I will pay five hundred pieces of gold for such a blade,” said the noble.

“That’s more than everyone in this village will even see in their entire lives,” said Marlena. “Truly, I would love to accept your offer, but I am not the woman you seek.”

“These rumors lead me to believe that Marlena Césaire would solve my problem.”

This caught Marlena’s attention. “What is your problem?”

“I am a great swordsman, a master. Unfortunately, I cannot find a weapon to match my peculiarities, and therefore I am deprived of reaching my highest skills. Had I such a sword, there would be no one in all the world to equal me.”

At Marlena’s inquisitive frown, the noble held up her right hand. Marlena began to grow excited.

The woman had six fingers.

“Of course,” Marlena exclaimed, “the balance of the sword is wrong for you because every balance has been conceived for five. The grip of every handle cramps you, because it has been built for five. For an ordinary swordsman it would not matter, but a great swordsman, a master, would have eventual discomfort. And the greatest swordsman in the world must always be at ease. The grip of their weapon must be as natural as the blink of their eye, and cause them no more thought.”

“Clearly, you understand the difficulties—” the noblewoman began.

But Marlena had traveled where others’ words could never reach her. She continued to list and rattle off the necessities of such a blade. Alya had never seen her mother so frenzied. The noble dismounted and had to almost take her by the shoulders to quiet her.

“You _are_ the woman of the rumors.”

Marlena nodded.

“And you _will_ make me the greatest sword since Excalibur.”

“I may fail—but no one will try harder.”

“And payment?”

“When you get the sword, then payment. Now let me get to work measuring. Alya—my instruments.”

Alya scurried into the darkest corner of the hut.

“When should I expect it to be finished?” asked the noble.

“Come back in a year,” Marlena said, and with that she set to work.

Such a year.

Marlena slept only when she dropped from exhaustion. She ate only when Alya would force her to. She studied, fretted, complained. She never should have taken the job; it was impossible. The next day she would be flying. She never should have taken the job; it was too simple to be worth her labors.

Joy to despair, joy to despair, day to day, hour to hour. Sometimes Alya would wake to find her weeping: “What is it, Mother?” “It is that I cannot do it. I cannot make the sword. I cannot make my hands obey me.” “Go to sleep, Maman.” “No, I don’t need sleep. Failures don’t need sleep. Anyway, I slept yesterday.” “Please Maman, a little nap.” “All right, a few minutes—to keep you from nagging.”

Some nights Alya would awake to see her dancing. “What is it, Maman?” “It is that I have found my mistakes, corrected my misjudgments.” “Then it will be done soon, Maman?” “It will be done tomorrow and it will be a miracle.” “You are wonderful, Maman.” “I’m more wonderful than wonderful, how dare you insult me.”

But the next night, more tears. “What is it now, Maman?” “The sword, the sword, I cannot make the sword.” “But last night, Maman, you said you had found your mistakes.” “I was mistaken; tonight I found new ones, worse ones. I am the most wretched of creatures. A pitiable ruin.” “Who could pity the greatest sword maker in the history of the world?” “Thank you, Alya.” “You’re welcome, Maman.” “I love you, Alya.” “Sleep, Maman.” “Yes. Sleep.”

A whole year of that. A year of the handle being right, but the balance being wrong, of the balance being right, but the cutting edge too dull, of the cutting edge sharpened, but that threw the balance off again, of the balance returning, but now the point was fat, of the point regaining sharpness, only now the entire blade was too short and it all had to go, all had to be thrown out, all had to be done again. Again. Again. Marlena’s health began to leave her. She was fevered always now, but she forced her frail shell on, because this had to be the finest since Excalibur. Marlena was battling legend, and it was destroying her.

Such a year.

One night Alya woke to find her mother seated. Staring. Calm. Alya followed the stare.

The six-fingered sword was done.

Even in the hut’s darkness, it glistened.

“At last,” Marlena whispered. She could not take her eyes from the glory of the sword. “After a lifetime. Alya. Alya. I am an artist.”

Alya approached the blade, but could not bring herself to touch it. Reverently, she sat beside her mother, taking her callused hand.

“What is it called, Maman?”

“Trixx,” said Marlena, “the finest sword since Excalibur.”

The sharp-voiced noblewoman did not agree. When she returned to purchase the sword, she looked at it for scarcely a moment. “Not worth waiting for,” she said.

Alya stood in the corner of the hut, watching, holding her breath.

“You are disappointed?” Marlena could scarcely get the words spoken.

“It’s not that it’s trash,” the noblewoman explained, “but it’s certainly not worth five hundred pieces of gold. I’ll give you ten—it’s probably worth that.”

“Wrong!” Marlena cried. “It is not worth ten. It is not worth even one. Here.” And she threw open the drawer where the one goldpiece had lain untouched the year. “The gold is yours. All of it. You have lost nothing.” She took back the sword and turned away.

“I’ll take the sword,” the noblewoman said. “I didn’t say I wouldn’t take it. I only said I would pay what it was worth.”

Marlena whirled back, eyes bright. “You quibbled. You haggled. Art was involved and you saw only money. Beauty was here for the taking and you saw only your fat purse. You have lost nothing; there is no more reason for your remaining here. Please go.”

“The sword,” the noble said.

“The sword belongs to my daughter,” Marlena said. “I give it to her now. It is forever hers. Goodbye.”

“You’re a peasant and a fool and I want my sword.”

“You’re an enemy of art and I pity your ignorance,” Marlena said.

They were the last words she ever spoke.

The noble killed her then, with no warning; a flash of the noblewoman’s sword and Marlena’s heart was torn to pieces.

Alya screamed. She could not believe it; it had not happened. She screamed again. Her mother was fine—soon they would have tea. She could not stop screaming.

The village heard. Twenty of them rushed to the door. The noblewoman pushed her way through them. “That woman attacked me. See? She holds a sword. She attacked me and I defended myself. Now move from my way.”

It was lies, of course, and everyone knew it. But she was a noble so what was there to do? They parted, and the noblewoman mounted her horse.

“Coward!”

The noblewoman whirled.

“Vixen!”

Again the crowd parted.

Alya stood there, holding the six-fingered sword, repeating her words: “Coward. Vixen. Killer.”

“Someone tend the babe before she oversteps herself,” the noble said to the crowd.

Alya ran forward then, standing in front of the noblewoman’s horse, blocking the noblewoman’s path. She raised Trixx with both her hands and cried, “I, Alya Césaire, do challenge you, coward, vixen, killer, to battle.”

“Get her out of my way. Move the infant.”

“The infant is ten and she stays,” said Alya.

“Enough of your family is dead for one day; be content,” said the noble.

“When you beg me for breath, then I shall be contented. Now _dismount!_ ”

The noblewoman dismounted.

“Draw your sword.”

The noblewoman drew her sword.

“I dedicate your death to my mother,” Alya said. “Begin.”

They began.

It was no match, of course. Alya was disarmed in less than a minute. But for the first fifteen seconds or so, the noble was uneasy. During those fifteen seconds, strange thoughts crossed her mind. For even at the age of ten, Alya’s genius was there.

Disarmed, Alya stood very straight. She said not a word, begged nothing.

“I’m not going to kill you,” the noblewoman said, “because you have talent and you’re brave. But you’re also lacking in manners, and that’s going to get you in trouble. So I shall help you as you go through life, by leaving you with a reminder that bad manners are to be avoided.” And with that her blade flashed. Two times.

And Alya’s face began to bleed. Two rivers of blood poured over her eyes, to her chin, a diagonal slash on each side of her forehead.

Alya would not fall. The world went white behind her eyes but she would not go to ground. The blood continued to pour. The noblewoman replaced her sword, remounted, rode on.

It was only then that Alya allowed the darkness to claim her.

She awoke to the face of Caline, her mother’s friend from the city.

“I was beaten,” Alya whispered, “I failed her.”

Caline could only say, “Sleep.”

Alya slept. The bleeding stopped after a day and the pain stopped after a week. They buried Marlena, and for the first and last time Alya left Annabelle.

Seven years passed.

Seven long years, full of hardship and sleepless nights and blistered hands that gave way to rough calluses, studying until her vision blurred and her legs shook and her arms buzzed with exhaustion. Seven years of preparing herself physically, mentally, of training her agility and her reasoning and her stamina.

At the end of these seven years, Alya began the track-down. She had it all carefully prepared in her mind. She would find the six-fingered woman. She would go up to her. She would say simply, “Hello, my name is Alya Césaire, you killed my mother, prepare to die,” and then, oh then, the duel.

It was a lovely plan really. Simple, direct. No frills. In the beginning, Alya had all kinds of wild vengeance notions, but gradually, simplicity had seemed the better way. Originally, she had all kinds of little plays worked out in her mind—the enemy would weep and beg, the enemy would cringe and cry, the enemy would bribe and slobber and act disgracefully—but eventually, these too gave way in her mind to simplicity: The enemy would simply say, “Oh yes, I remember killing her; I’ll be only too delighted to kill you as well.”

Alya had only one problem: She could not find the enemy.

It never occurred to her there would be the least difficulty. After all, how any noblewomen were there with six fingers on their right hands? Surely, it would be the talk of whatever her vicinity happened to be. Surely sooner or later, there would be an answering: “Yes,” to her inquiries.

But it didn’t come sooner.

And later wasn’t the kind of thing you wanted to hold your breath for either.

The first month wasn’t all that discouraging. Alya crisscrossed the Antilles. The second month she moved to France and spent the rest of the year there. The year following she tried Italy, and then Germany, and the whole of Switzerland.

It was only after three solid years of failure that she began to worry. By then she had seen all of the Balkans and most of Scandinavia and had visited the Florinese and the natives of Guilder and into Mother Russia and down step by step around the entire Mediterranean.

By then she knew what had happened: Seven years learning was seven years too long. Too much had been allowed to happen. The six-fingered woman was probably crusading in Asia. Or getting rich in America. Or a hermit in the East Indies. Or… or…

Dead?

Alya, at the age of twenty, began having trouble sleeping. Her world was collapsing around her. Not only was she living in daily failure, something almost as dreadful was beginning to happen:

Fencing was beginning to bore her.

She was simply too good. She would make her living during her travels by finding the local champion wherever they happened to be, and they would duel, and Alya would disarm them and accept whatever they happened to bet. And with her winnings she would pay for her food and her lodgings and her wine.

But the local champions were nothing. Even in the big cities, the local experts were nothing. Even in the capital cities, the local masters were nothing. There was no competition, nothing to help her keep an edge. Her life began to seem pointless, her quest pointless, everything, everything, without reason.

At twenty one she gave up the ghost. She stopped her search, forgot to eat, slept only on occasion. She had her wine for company and that was enough.

She was a shell. The greatest fencing machine in a century was barely even practicing the sword.

She was in that condition when Papillon found her.

At first he did little, listening to her chat with the bartender. Then he asked to see her map.

“This is a map of Portugal,” he told her.

“Isn’t that where we are?”

“This is Normandy.”

Alya squinted at the battered parchment. “Damn.”

“You didn’t wonder why we were all speaking French?” asked the bartender, handing her another glass of wine.

“Well I don’t really—I mean, I know a little English, but—I assumed you knew I spoke French, and you were being polite?”

“How long did you say you’ve been traveling?” asked Papillon.

“Oh, god,” said Alya, putting her face in her hands. “Five years. I’ve been using the wrong map for five years.”

“I have a business proposal for you,” said Papillon, with a wry smile. “I’ll help you with this little quest of yours, and you help me achieve my own goals.”

“What kind of goals are we talking about?” Alya asked, raising an eyebrow.

As it turned out, Papillon had a dream: with his guile plus Nino’s strength plus Alya’s sword, they might become the most effective criminal organization in the civilized world.

Which is precisely what they became.

In dark places, their names whipped sharper than fear; everyone had needs that were hard to fulfill. The Papillon Crowd (two was company, three a crowd, even then) became more and more famous and more and more rich. Nothing was beyond or beneath them. Alya’s blade was flashing again, more than ever like lightning. Nino’s strength grew more prodigious with the months.

But Papillon was the leader. There was never doubt. Without him, Alya knew where she would be: lost and hopeless in a country she probably didn’t know the name of. Papillon’s word was not just law, it was gospel.

So when he said, “Kill the woman in red,” all other possibilities ceased to exist. The woman in red had to die.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "she is only a friend" no, listen. this is my fic & it's canon. marline 5ever. or calena. whatever that ship name'd be. 
> 
> in researching Alya’s probable namesake, Aimé Césaire, i discovered he was married to a woman named Suzanne Roussi–which, you know, should look pretty familiar! and, ah, well, Rossi is italian of course (plural of rosso, “red”) and roussi can mean several things in French (most notably “burnt” and the past participle of “to scorch”) but i think as a name it’s most likely related to the French surname Roussy? which is ultimately derived from the Old French rous, “red”  
> which I’d be willing to bet shares a root with Rossi.  
> [clears throat]  
> anyway just a cool parallel between Alya and Lila. i’ll literally never get tired of the foil they’ve got going here


	5. The Cliffs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Containing sword fights, acrobatics, and questionable deductive reasoning

Alya huffed.

The woman in red was still climbing.

“Look,” called Alya over the edge, “I don’t mean to be rude, but could you speed things up any? I’m getting a little bored up here.”

The woman in red looked up. She was too far away to make out many details, but she had dark hair, light eyes, and an incredulous expression.

“I’m sorry you’re bored,” she told Alya. “If you’d like to switch places, just say the word.”

Alya waved apologetically. Okay, so she’d been rude. It wasn’t as if she could help being bored. She was just sitting here, waiting.

She withdrew from the lip of the cliff, stretching and fencing with shadows for a time.

When she looked again, the woman in red was taking a break, her arms jammed into a crevice while she dangled.

“Taking a rest, huh?” asked Alya. “Smart.”

The woman in red looked up again.

“You know, if you’re in such a hurry, you could just help me up instead of complaining.”

“I could,” Alya agreed, “I thought about it, actually, but it didn’t seem like something you’d be into, since I’m waiting around to kill you.”

“Yeah, I think I’ll take my time down here. Have fun being bored.”

“Ah, but—I promise I won’t kill you until you reach the top.”

“As reassuring as that is, I think I’ll pass.”

Alya huffed again.

The woman in red began climbing once again, hand over hand, foot over foot, arm over arm, gripping patches of moss and the infrequent tufts of grass that grew out of the side of the cliff with gloved fingers. Seabirds wheeled above her, some swooping dangerously close, screeching as she got too near to their nests. Alya flicked pebbles at them to pass the time, stopping when one bounced off the woman in red and she turned to Alya with a scowl.

“Sorry,” said Alya. She was lying at the edge of the cliff now, chin dangling over the edge. “I’m just—”

“Bored,” finished the woman in red, still scowling. “I know.”

“Isn’t there anything I can do to convince you?” Alya pleaded. “I’m losing my mind up here.”

“I guess they had to be called the Cliffs of Insanity for a reason,” said the woman in red with a wry smile.

“We’ve got a piece of extra rope up here,” said Alya, trying to keep the whine from her voice. “I could just lower it down to you, and you wouldn’t have to work so hard at all. Wouldn’t that be nice?”

“Well, you _might_ do that—or you might just let go, and I could fall to my death, which doesn’t sound particularly nice at all, thank you very much.”

“But why would I?” asked Alya, her impatience coloring her tone with frustration.

“By your own admission, you’re only waiting around to kill me,” said the woman in red.

“You wouldn’t even know that if I hadn’t told you, though—oughtn’t that be enough reason for you to trust me?”

“Frankly, and I hope you won’t be insulted—no.”

Alya got to her feet, clasping her left hand to her heart and raising the right in the air. “I swear on the soul of Marlena Césaire, you will reach the top alive!”

The woman in red was silent for a long time. Then she looked up.

“Throw me the rope,” she told Alya.

Alya unwound a length of the sawed-off rope from where it was still tied to the trunk of an enormous tree, tossing it down to the woman in red, who grabbed it without hesitation. She used the cliff face to brace against, and Alya hauled upwards, and with their combined efforts it was scarcely a minute before the woman in red stood at the top.

“Thank you,” she said, moving to draw her sword, but Alya stopped her with raised hands. “Wait until you’re ready,” she said gently.

“Again, thank you,” said the woman in red, with a genuine smile. She raised a hand, mirroring Alya’s action, unknowingly revealing that she only had five fingers. A part of Alya relaxed; this was not the woman she sought. She could afford to be courteous. The woman in red moved to a flat rock, sitting down heavily.

Alya scrutinized her as she caught her breath. Her chest was heaving with exertion, and some of her long black hair had come loose from a scarlet ribbon at the base of her skull. She wore a cloth mask around her eyes, and a bandana tied over her hair. Her shirt was loose and linen, a deep red that matched her face and hair coverings. Thick black thread stood out against the fabric along the seams. She wore both belt and baldric, and gloves—gauntlets?—that laced around the wrist, all in coal-dark leather. Pants instead of skirts, and worn boots with practical-looking buckles.

A professional, clearly. But a professional what?

“Why are you following us?” asked Alya conversationally. She sat down on a rock across from the woman in red, folding her arms and keeping her posture relaxed. True, she would be just as agile from such a position, but there was no reason to put her opponent ill at ease when she was meant to be regaining strength.

The woman in red was silent for a moment, removing one of her boots and tipping loose gravel from within. “You carry baggage of great value,” she said finally. Her eyes, which Alya was now close enough to identify as _ridiculously_ blue, crinkled a little, as if she were suppressing a smile. It didn’t really make sense to Alya; the rest of her expression (beneath very poorly applied neutrality) was screaming of bitterness and resignation.

“We’re not interested in selling,” Alya told her carefully. The woman in red actually did smile at that, wry and calculating.

“That is your business,” she answered, replacing her boot.

“And what is yours?”

The woman in red made no reply.

Alya got to her feet, turning her back on the woman to once again survey the terrain. The shadows had shifted slightly since her last assessment, but the leaves were still damp, and the brambles still wild. She prayed that the woman in red might be a good swordsman; it had been so long since she had had a good duel, a _real_ duel, one that challenged her and demanded her considerable skills.

The woman in red was a fine sailor, clearly—a magnificent (if agonizingly slow) climber—she was courageous without a doubt, if somewhat given to being cryptic.

But could she fence?

 _Really_ fence?

“I think I’m ready,” said the woman in red. Alya turned to face her again, brightening. “Thank you for allowing me my rest.”

“Oh, no problem,” said Alya, sincerely. “You seem pretty nice; I hate to kill you.”

“You seem pretty nice,” echoed the woman in red. “I hate to die.”

“But one of us must,” said Alya, drawing Trixx. She kissed the blade, as she always did before a match, and took up her stance. “Begin.”

The woman in red drew her sword, a boarding sabre that was surprisingly plain for such a mysterious creature. Its most remarkable feature was that it had a simple straight quillon rather than a basket hilt. The grip was hand-and-a-half, wrapped in the same scarlet as the rest of her.

Alya smiled.

Too often she had faced lords and princes who thought they could buy talent, with ostentatious blades that sparkled with jewel-encrusted handles and ill-tended edges that had never seen a real battle.

The woman in red’s sword was plain, yes, unassuming—but a true weapon, a master’s weapon. A weapon that had been used to survive the heat of combat and the biting chill of slaughter.

Her stance was simple too, matching Alya’s almost exactly. She shifted forward, testing Alya’s balance, and was apparently satisfied, as she struck immediately.

The blades rang as they came together, a high toll like that of a bell. Alya deflected the first blow, letting it slide against Trixx’s edge until the woman in red withdrew. They were in what had once been a courtyard of sorts, the only area within the crumbling walls that remained untouched by vegetation, and while it was ideal for a fencing match, what Alya had in mind was much grander.

She danced backwards from the woman in red’s next advance, balancing on the balls of her feet as she moved through the rough terrain on memory alone. The woman in red’s face betrayed nothing, but from her movements it was clear she was surprised, and Alya felt smug in spite of herself. Though they’d been fighting for less than a minute, it was obvious to both that Alya’s footwork was superior, and she intended to take full advantage of it.

She ghosted into the trees, skipping backwards over a bramble, meeting the woman in red’s advance with expert parries.

First blood was hers.

It wasn’t much—a thin scratch along the woman in red’s left wrist, barely enough to break the skin, but enough to darken the expression beneath the mask.

She surged forward so suddenly that Alya nearly failed to dodge, hopping sideways behind the trunk of a wizened oak. She half expected the sabre to bury itself in the bole of the tree, but abruptly, the flash of the sun on her opponent’s weapon vanished.

The battleground became silent.

Alya remained frozen, turning her senses outwards, rooted to the spot as much as the trees she took shelter in.

She saw only the tangled copse and stone walls; she heard only the crashing waves and calling birds; she smelled only the damp leaves and sea air.

The hairs on the back of her neck stood up, and she threw herself to the ground.

She was pelted with a shower of leaves, and saw the tip of the woman in red’s blade withdraw from midair, only to plunge straight for Alya’s heart.

She rolled over once, twice, getting her knees under herself and springing to her feet.

The woman in red was in the trees.

Alya swore, laughing in delight. She took up a high stance, tracking the scarlet that stood out like a sore thumb against the muted greens of the treetops, confident enough in her footwork to keep her eyes on her opponent.

The woman in red was smiling, apparently as exhilarated as Alya felt, dangling upside down from the bough of the oak she had vanished behind, her knees hooked over the top of it. Clasping her sword in one hand, she used the other to swing her legs back and around, throwing herself at Alya with the full momentum of her body.

Their swords rang again, but this time they pressed closer together, a contest of strength.

They were near enough that Alya could make out the pattern welding in her opponent’s blade, see the strange inscription in a foreign script that decorated the fuller. Distinguish a dusting of freckles peeking out from under the linen mask.

“Who are you?” she asked the woman in red, gritting her teeth with the effort of matching the pressure exerted on Trixx.

“Does it matter?” asked the woman in red, shoving against Alya with a sudden burst of power that had her stumbling backwards.

“Yes,” said Alya, laughing again. “You are… wonderful. I’ve never fought someone so talented.”

“Neither have I,” admitted the woman in red, smiling. “It really is a shame to die after just one match. It hardly feels fair.”

“All’s fair in love and war,” said Alya, losing ground.

“And which is this?” asked the woman in red. She had Alya at a disadvantage, her back to the towering cliffs, their blades glancing off one another.

“Well, if I’m right—both.”

The woman in red became visibly unnerved by this, and Alya seized her opportunity, striking with the flat of her blade and springing away so that her opponent was between her and the cliffs.

“Right about what?” asked the woman in red, apparently unperturbed by this turnaround as she renewed her onslaught.

“Who you are,” said Alya, parrying. She danced away from the searching tip of the sabre, away from the trees where the woman in red held the advantage, her back now to one of the crumbling walls.

The woman in red lowered her blade slightly as she followed, taking a defensive stance despite pressing her own advantage.

“Do tell,” she entreated, smiling again.

“You’re the Dread Pirate Ladybug,” Alya announced, openly smug.

The woman in red froze.

Alya, more interested in answers than ending what was quiet possibly the best fight of her life, continued, “I mean, if the outfit wasn’t enough—who else could sail a ship so well by themselves? Who else could hold their own in a duel against the great Alya Césaire?”

“Plenty of people,” said the woman in red, though she didn’t really seem to be trying to dissuade Alya so much as point out the holes in her logic. “Certainly being able to do both is rarer, but not unheard of.”

“Maybe,” Alya conceded, “but you’re a pirate, and no other pirate would dare challenge the Papillon Crowd single-handed.”

“And whoever said I was a pirate?”

“Your sword,” said Alya simply, gesturing with Trixx to the simple sabre. “You may be fairly tight-lipped, but no sword on this earth can keep its secrets from me.”

“Is it really a secret?” asked Ladybug, a grin splitting her masked face. “If I’m so easily identified, it’s a wonder I bother flying the colors at all.”

She advanced again, less threatening in the open than she had been in the trees, but still fearsome enough to cause Alya to widen her stance against the wall. She fought differently now that her identity had been (more or less) revealed; she did nothing to disguise her short-stepping footwork, or the low bend of her knees. Here was a fighter accustomed to storming decks and battling in close quarters; here was a master swordsman, a pirate of unrivaled infamy.

A shiver of excitement ran through Alya’s body. Here was a challenge worthy of her skill.

They met again between the wall and a dilapidated staircase, Ladybug striking first. Alya parried and riposted, glazing the side of Ladybug’s sabre, until she lunged in return, forcing Alya to spin away. She allowed herself to be backed into the wall, leveraging herself off of it with one foot to regain the advantage.

“You said earlier that if you were right about my identity, it would be both love and war,” said Ladybug, as Alya pressed her backwards up the stairs. Her footwork was poor compared to Alya’s, but she had the added advantage of height now, and moved backwards readily, her tone conversational as always. “What did you mean?”

“Just that,” said Alya simply. “Our business is war, and yours must be love.”

“Why must it?” asked Ladybug, scowling a little. Whether it was from their conversation or because she was quickly running out of stairs, Alya couldn’t say.

“Pirates benefit tremendously from war—particularly, as we’re trying to cultivate, a war on two sides of a channel. So we can assume that you’re motivated by a prize greater than a war of indeterminable length could grant you, which would have to be substantial—so substantial that only the very rich or the very desperate could afford to pay it.”

“That seems more a case for money than for love.”

“Your employer must be motivated by love,” explained Alya. “A beautiful marquis slash prince? Who else would have sufficient funds to spend but some noble who’s hopelessly in love with him?”

They were high enough now that Ladybug’s back was against the wall at the top of the stairs, and they were even with most of the treetops. A series of vines laced across the stone and branches, doing their utmost to ensnare the combatants, like a living spider web.

“You assume much of my employer,” said Ladybug, “and of my own motivations.”

“You’re a pirate,” said Alya simply. “You’re outside of the political order. Only money would motivate you to become involved.”

Actually, that didn’t seem right. Alya frowned to herself, kicking a vine loose from the staircase as she tried to muddle through her thoughts. Why would anyone, motivated by love or otherwise, solicit a pirate to thwart an assassination?

Ladybug capitalized on her distraction with a low slash, which Alya parried easily. She surged forward with an assault of her own, pressing Ladybug so far against the wall that she had to brace with one hand against it.

“No one hired you,” said Alya, not anywhere near as confident in the accusation as she sounded. “You’re doing this of your own accord.”

_Crrrbbrlltt!_

With a single fluid motion, Ladybug ripped a fistful of climbing vines from the wall behind her, spinning with the momentum and leaping backwards into space.

Alya sucked in a shocked breath, springing forward and peering over the edge.

The staircase didn’t overlook the cliff, but they were a flight up, and even if she had rolled, Ladybug ought to have remained visible to Alya, but the space below the tree was empty. All she could hear was the creaking of the branches and the popping sounds of roots that had been torn from the stone beside her.

Acting more on instinct than logic, Alya whirled.

There was Ladybug, on the stairs below her, her sabre pointed again at Alya’s heart.

“My ‘own accord,’ might be overstating it,” said Ladybug, meeting Alya’s eyes. She looked awfully resigned for someone holding the upper hand. “I don’t know that I had much choice in the matter. Trying to stop… It’d be like trying to stop the sun from setting.”

“That’s very poetic, but I have no idea what you’re talking about,” said Alya, shifting so that she could raise Trixx. Ladybug’s sword moved as she did, halting her maneuver before it could begin.

“I’m sure you could come up with a wild theory or two,” said Ladybug, smiling. She made no move to attack, apparently waiting to see what Alya would do next.

Her thoughts more on the mystery than the duel, Alya shook her head, eyes still locked with Ladybug. It didn’t make any sense with the facts she had at hand—there had to be a variable she hadn’t considered.

She tried to look at things from Ladybug’s perspective; if she were a bloodthirsty pirate, why would she interfere in a political kidnapping slash assassination? Either a stake in the kidnapped, or the kidnappers.

Yes, their hostage was beautiful, but Alya had found him more pitiful than attractive. Sure he was engaged to royalty, but he hadn’t spoken very fondly of the woman, and if the whimpering in his sleep had been any indication, the kid was unhappy as anything. She couldn’t imagine being so enamored of a distant political figure that she’d be moved to challenge one of the best known criminal syndicates on either side of the channel.

So if not the captive, then the captors.

This seemed a good deal more likely. After all, the Papillon Crowd was famous for a reason—it was more than possible they had stepped on the Dread Pirate Ladybug’s toes at some point or other. Whether it was merely her becoming fed up with their growing enterprise, or a personal vendetta resulting from a particular crime, Ladybug was determined to thwart their mission.

Unless she was careful, at the cost of Alya’s life.

Without telegraphing her move, without lifting Trixx so much as an inch, Alya sprang towards Ladybug, completing her earlier half-turn.

What she didn’t see was the vine she had loosened earlier, caught between her feet, one end clenched in Ladybug’s left hand.

Ladybug pulled the vine taut, and Alya cascaded forward down the stairs, tossing Trixx into the air, barely managing to tuck her head in time to somersault gracelessly to the ground.

She landed hard on one knee, planting her right hand and heel in the discarded vines where they struck, and reached up to catch Trixx with her left hand as Ladybug jumped down after her.

The attack came instantly, a savage kick with her left foot and a slash of the sabre from the right.

Alya parried the slash, catching Ladybug’s heel in her right hand and leaning into it with her full weight, using the leverage to get to her feet.

Ladybug, though strong, could not resist the force of Alya’s entire body channeled through her dominant hand, and as Alya bent her ankle backwards, driving her knee to bend, she began to lose balance.

She reached back with her left hand to steady herself, her right still holding the boarding sabre aloft, locked at the hilt with Trixx. Her teeth were gritted with exertion, the cut on her wrist staining the dirt, the muscles in her neck straining visibly as she matched Alya’s strength despite her difficult position.

Alya leaned forward, insistent, unyielding, until Ladybug’s free hand was pressed against the ground entirely, and the balance shifted once again.

Ladybug kicked suddenly against Alya’s hand, causing her to windmill slightly to keep her footing as Ladybug performed a handspring—a _handspring—_ and landed in a fighting crouch with her blade at the ready.

“Oh god damn it,” said Alya, laughing. “That’s gotta be cheating.”

“All’s fair in love and war,” said Ladybug with a blinding smile.

She yanked one of the vines tangled between Alya’s feet, once again sending her opponent flying. Alya twisted in midair, tossing Trixx and moving to catch herself in a handstand of her own, but her legs were still twisted in the vines, and Ladybug pulled sharply, sending Alya sprawling.

She landed heavily on her back, the air whooshing out of her lungs, still half-trying to kick her legs free of the vegetation, her head spinning. Then Ladybug was standing over her, catching Trixx in her left hand and gesturing for Alya to get up.

Beaten, Alya swallowed.

So this was how it ended. At the hands of a pirate.

She pushed herself up onto her knees, her head buzzing painfully.

There was no finer opponent she could have asked for; no one else she could have dreamed conceding defeat towards.

Her only regret was her unfinished revenge.

“Do it quickly,” she told Ladybug, closing her eyes. She would die with dignity, if not with a blade in her hand.

“I’d sooner die than kill an artist like yourself,” said Ladybug. Alya’s eyes flew open, to see Ladybug digging in a pouch fastened to the ribbing of her corset with one hand, both blades held in the other. She removed a small vial and a piece of scarlet cloth. “However, since I can’t have you following me either—”

She pressed the lip of the vial to the cloth, and then the cloth to Alya’s face.

“—please understand I hold you in the highest respect.”

Alya struggled automatically, but succumbed within seconds, sprawling unconscious in the dirt.

 

Ladybug dragged her to the lee of the staircase, beneath the tree full of loose vines, sheathing Trixx in her scabbard, and left her, sleeping, as she raced into the morning sun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few callbacks this chapter--some of them were even intentional!  
> Haha gee I wonder who Ladybug is am I right fellas 
> 
> An interesting note on pirate flags: The jolly roger would be hoisted to identify the pirate crew attacking, to give its quarry a chance to surrender. Like, "Oh leaping lizards it's old Pegleg Mike he'll have our guts for garters, etc., etc.," and, failing surrender, the jolly roger would be lowered and replaced by a red (or "bloody," because subtlety doesn't really factor into shock and awe) flag, under which the pirates would grant no quarter. 
> 
> Meaning like, NO SURVIVORS, even if you surrender, too bad, no quarter, it's death time punk. 
> 
> The Dread Pirate Ladybug's outfit being red, then, factors into her notoriety to a degree, and is certainly not because I have an unbearable fondness for color coded costumes.
> 
> i'd also like to thank my editor, who tonight stopped me from using "fucking" as an adjective yet again


	6. Nino

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my editor fell asleep so this is subject to change

Nino glanced over his shoulder—the one that wasn’t carrying their prisoner—as they climbed up the rocky slope. They were far enough now that they wouldn’t be able to hear the clashing of swords; indeed, Nino could hardly hear anything over the howling wind. They were heading inland, and had just finished crossing a moor that rose and fell and blocked their view of the cliffs, which was what made him so nervous. The woman in red might leap out from behind some crag or tor and take them all by surprise at any moment.

The path was steepening sharply, rising into a down Nino knew to be part of a series of ridges that separated the weather-beaten coast from the comparatively temperate valleys of Guilder.

The prince squirmed a little in his grasp, probably to keep his tense shoulder from digging into the poor kid’s stomach—Nino obligingly tried to relax, taking deep, measured breaths and focusing on putting one foot in front of the other. It was treacherous ground here, and he couldn’t afford to take his eyes off the moss-covered scree for long. Papillon was leading them, and Alya would stop the woman in red. Everything would be fine.

“Hey,” said the prince, and Nino looked up at him, pausing. He couldn’t see much other than Adrien’s ribcage and his fancy embroidered vest, but he could read the stiffness in his frame. “I think I see something behind us.”

Nino whirled, expecting the woman in red to descend upon him instantly—but found only a barren moor.

“What did it look like?” he asked the prince, his hands raised defensively in front of them.

“I dunno—I just saw something moving. Maybe a pony, maybe a wolf. Are there wolves out here?”

“There are no wolves in Guilder, you stupid boy,” said Papillion from behind him. Nino looked over his shoulder again, this time at his boss, who was scowling at the younger men. Nino winced. “I don’t know if you’re trying to play tricks on us or you’ve fallen prey to whatever fanciful imaginings no doubt plague that empty head of yours, but we have wasted enough time on this. Nino, set him down. He and I continue on alone.”

“But sir—” Nino began, breaking off as Papillon’s scowl deepened.

“If there’s something following us, you will dispose of it. That includes the woman in red, should she manage to cheat or trick her way past Alya. You are to pick up one of these rocks, take aim, and bash in the brains of whatever creature was foolish enough to cross our path,” said Papillon. His voice was low and cool, a terrifying indicator of the poisonous rage lurking beneath his collected exterior.

Until he’d met Papillon, Nino had always been sure that the most terrifying rage was an explosive one, red-faced screaming and swinging of fists; Papillon had shattered that conviction within days. Watching his muted fury as he politely asked their very first mark where the money was hidden had chilled Nino to his core.

“Yes, sir,” whispered Nino. He set Adrien down as gently as he could, a hand between his shoulders to help him balance on the slope with his arms still bound. “What do I do after?”

Papillon settled a little, apparently mollified by Nino’s compliance.

“You catch up with us on the Guilder frontier. If you lose us, we’ll meet up back in Florin City—head to a port and offer your labor in exchange for passage across the channel. Understand?”

“Yes sir.”

Papillon nodded resolutely, drawing a knife from its place at his hip. Nino watched Adrien’s eyes follow the blade, and was impressed to see no trace of fear. He was actually a little sad about this one. Ordinarily they dealt more with theft and extortion than cold-blooded murder—and the criminals they normally rubbed elbows with were a far cry from the soft-hearted Marquis of Carabas. As he’d twitched and cried out in his sleep the previous night, Alya had remarked that it felt like assassinating a puppy.

Watching the sour disinterest on Adrien’s face, Nino disagreed: It felt like assassinating a really pissy cat.

Papillon and the prince swept away up the slope, leaving Nino behind to find some good rocks for bashing. He arranged what he could find into a pile that looked unnervingly like a stash of snowballs, and settled back behind a boulder to await his quarry.

∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙

At his birth, Nino was the smallest newborn ever recorded in the city. Born nearly a month early, his death was regarded as inevitable—and no one seemed more surprised by his survival than Nino himself.

He was so small that he could be held in one hand until he was nearly four months old, and his bright golden eyes were perpetually staring about in bewilderment, open wide and looking enormous on his small, malleable face. He almost never cried, though he would occasionally chirp or babble to his parents, who adored him.

“He won’t amount to much, being so small,” people would say.

“There are plenty of things you can do if you’re small,” Nino’s father would say. “Why, there are some things you can _only_ do if you’re small. Besides: He could do nothing at all and still amount to more than you.”

This would often lead to fights, which Nino’s father would inevitably win. He wasn’t especially large or strong, but he was quick and crafty, and had determination on his side.

“Nino my boy,” he would say to the toddler as he sat beside him on the steps (in front of which all respectable street brawling was done), “one day you’re going to be old enough to understand what people are saying, so hear what I say to you now: It doesn’t matter what size you are, as long as you are a good man. That is all that matters.”

And Nino, though too young to understand, would reach for his father’s beard and smile so wide the man forgot his bruises and scraped knuckles, and everything was right between them.

For years Nino stayed small for his age, still quiet and soft-hearted, still with those great staring eyes. He was a full head shorter than most of the other children, who picked on him mercilessly. Nino as a child cried far more than Nino as a baby.

“M-mama,” he sobbed one day as he came into the house. His mother was beside him in an instant, still clutching a half-peeled carrot in her fluttering hands.

“What is it, Nino?” she asked anxiously, stooping to be even with him. “Was it those boys at school again?”

“Yes,” he managed, staring at her through eyes overflowing with tears and desolation.

His mother put down the carrot and smoothed the edge of his hair with her fingertips, waiting while he sniffled and coughed and wiped his running nose on the back of his hand. She was a patient and gentle woman, with eyes as bright as Nino’s and skin a few shades darker. Her simple presence was enough to calm him, though not to soothe his aching heart.

“My darling,” she said to him, voice soft and clear and warm, “this cannot go on. We must teach you to defend yourself.”

“Why bother?” he asked miserably. “They’re all right: I’m too little. I can’t do anything.”

“Dry your tears,” she said, getting to her feet, “and follow me.”

Nino obeyed, snuffling a bit as he trailed after her into the small courtyard they shared with seven other homes. It was about the size of each of these homes, but filled with plants rather than people.

Each family had planted their own garden, and all tended to communal herbs that were difficult to come by in the city outside of the overpriced market stalls. Vines curled up along the pillars to the rooves, flowers blossoming in spectacular candy red against the broad, flat leaves. The ground was paved with setts between the raised wooden boxes that overflowed with vegetables, mint, and brilliant purple saffron. Four olive trees grew at regular intervals between the doors of each adjoining home, their roots growing at sharp angles to accommodate the stone beneath them, and they cast gentle shade over the courtyard.

Nino’s mother walked determinedly, a brisk, no-nonsense walk that managed without fail to alarm the chickens kept within the courtyard. They scattered as she passed, clucking indignantly as they regrouped beneath an olive tree, some pecking insects from the soil of a garden bed.  

Nino trailed after her at a slow and rambling pace, weaving like a drunkard through his stifled tears. The chickens didn’t even blink as he traipsed through their midst.

They stopped in the center of the courtyard, just beyond the edge of the shadow cast by the eastern rooves. Nino’s mother dusted her hands unnecessarily against her apron, turned to Nino, and said, very resolutely, “Make a fist.”

“What?” asked Nino, alarmed.

“I’m going to teach you how to fight. So go on: Make a fist.”

“But—I can’t—”

“You can,” she interrupted. “You can and you will. Now listen to your mama.”

“Yes Mama,” said Nino, swallowing his dismay and obliging. His mother inspected it patiently, but shook her head at once.

“No, my darling,” she said softly, “when you make a fist you keep your thumb on the outside. If you keep it on the inside, you’ll break your fingers—and the point of fists is to hurt your opponent, not yourself.”

“But Mama,” Nino protested, tearing up anyway, “I don’t want to hurt anybody.”

“I don’t want you to hurt anybody either,” she said, and he could see the regret in her eyes, “but defending yourself is another matter entirely. They’re hurting you and getting away with it, and that’s not fair, is it?”

“No Mama,” he mumbled, “but I don’t mind it so much—”

“Well I do, and your baba does, and it hurts us when you’re hurting.”

“Oh,” said Nino, rubbing miserably at his sore ribs.

“They can’t pick on you because you’re littler than they are,” she said sternly, raising a finger and tapping his nose affectionately. “If you hurt people just because you think you can get away with it, well—maybe someone standing up for themselves will teach you not to hurt people.”

“What?” asked Nino, who was only nine and had no idea what his mother was talking about.

“If they’re hurting you, then they’re hurting other people,” she explained patiently. “That’s not fair, either. So if you can protect yourself, it might help protect them, too.”

“Oh,” said Nino, rubbing his ribs somewhat less miserably.

His mother spent the rest of the afternoon teaching him how to fight, and although he wasn’t very good at it, she assured him that was okay and the principle was more important at this point.

His father, when he got home, disagreed.

“You’re going to get the poor child killed,” he told his wife, looking down at their undersized son, who was holding his fists up as though they contained flowers. “Now, Son, I’m not saying you ought to lie down and take it, but—if you come at them with that then they’re going to laugh at you, and it’s going to be even more fun for them.”

“So what do I do?” asked Nino, a little crestfallen.

“Not to worry, not to worry,” said his father, scooping Nino into his arms and giving his cheek a scratchy kiss. Nino giggled and squirmed against him. “Your baba will teach you, and your mama, and we’ll all three of us protect you.”

Nino climbed up so that he was sitting on his father’s shoulders, looking down on everything.

“You see, my darling,” said his father, smiling up at him, “it is alright to have help. Together we are taller than any man.”

For the next few months, Nino’s parents trained him diligently. He was weak, but quick and agile as a mouse, dodging and ducking whatever blows were aimed his way. His mother would teach him in the afternoons, and his father in the evening, and during the day he would go to school and get picked on.

Though he was a hundred times better than he had been, the other children increased their savagery the more he resisted them, and as the years wore on he began to wonder if he shouldn’t just give up and return to the days of simple, straightforward beatings. After all, he may be better than he had been, but he was still no bigger.

Then Nino turned thirteen.

He didn’t notice anything immediately. His days passed the same way they always had. There was a pain in his shins he couldn’t account for, and his appetite had never been better, but other than that he entered his teenaged years with very little fanfare.

It was his mother that first put things together, a few months after his birthday. He was reaching up to pick some olives when she suddenly cried out, ran to him, and measured him against her own height.

He reached her collarbone.

As she was not an especially tall woman, this wasn’t much of an accomplishment, even considering his previous height. Nino was pleased, but didn’t understand why she was making _such_ a fuss over it until his father explained, very patiently, that he had never grown so much so _fast_ before.

They took to measuring him against the doorjamb, marking his progress every week. He grew steadily, instead of in spurts, as his father claimed to have done.

This rate put him on track with the rest of the children his age, and soon he was only the shortest in his class by a small margin. He was still losing his fights, but he thought privately that if he fought only one other child at a time, he might stand a chance.

By the time he was fourteen, Nino was as high as his mother’s chin.

By the time he was fifteen, he was up to his father’s.

By sixteen, he was taller than both of them, and as strong as any man in the city. Perhaps if he had stopped there, he might have been able to live quietly, working as a laborer in the port, finally throwing off his bullies (who had largely stopped pestering him when he started knocking his head on door lintels) and growing into himself.

But Nino didn’t stop there.

He kept growing, and growing, and growing, until he scarcely knew what to do with himself.

By rights he ought to have looked stretched out and gangling, but he was so well-fed, and so well-practiced, that his limbs naturally filled themselves out with muscle and sinew. In fact he became so strong that he could uproot a tree as easily as most people would a carrot, or crush a boulder in one hand as though it had been a ceramic shell.

Which isn’t to say he lacked control; his parent’s tutelage had left Nino acutely aware of his body, and his own strength, and he wielded it with the same timid and gentle nature he had always had. The chickens still didn’t spare him a blink.

When he was seventeen, the headaches started.

They were unlike anything he had ever experienced, blinding and so incapacitating that he often became sick from the pain of it. His parents were distraught, and though the doctors were able to provide explanations, they could not provide relief. There were rumors of a treatment, one so rare and expensive that it was simpler to accept that he would spend the remainder of his shortened life in considerable pain.

Seventeen found him managing his size and discomfort with a dignity none had expected from the tearful scrap of four years ago. Though he had dropped out of school as soon as he became too large to fit comfortably behind a desk, and remained positively abysmal at anything even resembling math, he knew all he needed to succeed—and he was happy.

If everything had worked out, he might have been able to live peacefully, tending the garden and reaching things on high shelves for his average-sized neighbors, and waiting to be overcome by the next bout of pain.

But everything didn’t work out.

Nino was sleeping when it happened; it was midmorning, but he was indulging himself after a particularly fruitful harvest of the garden the previous day. He woke when he was hurled violently from his bed, the air forced from his lungs with an audible huff. Bewildered, he tried to get to his feet, gripping the door frame in his massive hands to haul himself upright through the strange, lurching sensation of the ground trying to jump out from under him. Still half asleep, he staggered out into the courtyard.

“Mama?” he called, growing more alarmed the longer the pavement kept writhing beneath him, “Baba? What’s going on?”

He was dimly aware of a muted roaring, and every second it seemed there was a new ominous rumble in the distance. He heard screams not far away, so different from the playful shrieks that were common in the city that his blood ran cold.

“Mama! Baba!” he yelled, a little louder, looking wildly around. Some of his neighbors were stumbling blindly out of their homes into the courtyard, helping the children and the elderly. Nino was seized with a sudden panic and rushed back into the house, leaving the sun-spangled gardens behind him.

“MAMA!” he roared, clawing his way through the fallen furniture towards the kitchen, “BABA!”

There was an ominous creaking overhead, and a tremendous weight descended upon him as one of the beams of the house splintered under the stress, knocking him to the floor. He growled, not in pain, but in frustration, struggling out of the rubble as though tearing off a jacket.

Something warm and wet trickled down his face, probably blood—but there wasn’t time to figure it out. He had to find his parents. They still weren’t answering. Maybe they couldn’t hear him over the rumbling and roaring and ringing and chaos.

“ _MAMA! BABA!”_ he bellowed, with every inch of his oversized lungs.

He stood as still as he could, trying to listen.

“Nino!” he heard faintly, from the direction of the bedroom. He took off without a second thought, hurling chairs and tables aside, his great strength unleashed in a panicked frenzy as he fought to reach them. All the while the ground was heaving beneath him, rolling and shaking and pitching this way and that, trying to stop him, to beat him.

He was Nino Lahiffe, and he refused to be beaten.

He yelled hoarsely for his parents, feet driving into the ground with enough force to shatter the delicate tiles as he fought to remain upright.

The ceiling, which had remained largely intact even after the beam had been shaken free, began to groan. Nino gritted his teeth and pressed on, a single step taking what felt like an eternity.

“Nino!” came his mother’s voice, relieved, so happy he was safe.

“Mama!” he called back, almost to the bedroom.

 

 

The next thing he knew, he was furiously digging into piles of crumbled wall and roof and post, his fingers bloodied, his arms scraped and burned. He dropped a piece of a beam he had been holding, confused and disoriented. The air was thick with dust and ash, and the few shapes he could see through the gloom were moving slowly, methodically.

He staggered his way towards the nearest person, an older man clutching a handkerchief to his mouth and nose.

“What—” he tried, but his voice was gone. Either he had yelled too loudly and too frequently, or the ash had choked him, or some combination of the two. All that came out was a faint and rasping squeak.

“What happened?” guessed the man, lowering his handkerchief and looking Nino sadly up and down. “An earthquake, my boy. We found you here about an hour ago, digging away. We tried to tell you, but you couldn’t be stopped—you were determined.”

At the question in Nino’s eyes, the man’s face fell.

“There were no other survivors in this building.”

Nino stared at him.

“I’m so sorry for your loss.”

Nino turned away, wading through the debris with unseeing eyes.

He didn’t stop until his foot unearthed a tangle of olive leaves, and he realized he was in the courtyard, where he had spent so many hours laughing and playing and living.

The ground was torn up, setts thrown in every direction. A furrow had opened between two of the olive trees, swallowing some of the garden beds and a great deal of earth and rock. The collapsed vines and pillars were just visible under a thick veneer of dust, everything painted gray and chalky where it had once been vibrant.

A line of bodies was laid out where the western wall had once stood. They were covered in sheets as filthy as everything else, heads and feet tucked in loosely. He walked up and down the row, inspecting each familiar shape but not daring to touch them. Some were small and round, others thin and hunched. Two were unbearably recognizable, even beneath their shrouds.

He didn’t stay to help rebuild the razed city. It wasn’t his home anymore.

At first he simply wandered, working odd jobs and making his way eastward along the coast.

In Rabat, Nino had his first official match.

He signed up on a whim, thinking of his parents and how proud they had been of his fighting prowess. It wasn’t until he stood facing his opponent in the ring that he realized he had no idea how to wrestle.

His adversary was a strapping young man of twenty eight, taller and wider than anyone else who had ever set foot in the city. He almost came up to Nino’s shoulder. He had been the champion of Rabat for eleven years, since he was Nino’s age, and remained undefeated.

As he advanced, Nino felt a thrill of fear, suddenly the same scared, undersized child he had once been, at the mercy of this new enemy.

They grappled for a time, but he was awkward and unsure, his holds clumsy and far too easily avoided. The champion toyed with him, letting him get back up instead of pinning him and ending it—and Nino always got back up.

The crowd was tickled pink at the inexperienced giant, who bumbled his way into their city thinking he could defeat their champion. They laughed and cheered and took inadvisable bets, all while Nino struggled to remember what he was supposed to be doing.

Until Nino got his arms around the champion of Rabat.

The crowd stilled.

Nino squeezed.

“That’s enough,” the mediator said hastily.

Nino lowered the champion slowly to the ground. “That was a very good fight,” he told him, “thank you; I was lucky.”

The ex-champion of Rabat kind of grunted.

“Raise your hands,” the mediator reminded him, “you’re the winner.”

Nino raised his hands.

“Booooooo!” screeched the crowd.

“Cheater!”

“Behemoth!”

“Monster!”

“BOOOOOOO!”

He didn’t linger in Rabat.

The more cities he went to, the fewer he enjoyed—what had begun as a one-time thing quickly became his only source of income—he could scarcely make it through the city gates without being propositioned for a fight. Even at nineteen, Nino was meek and unassuming, and couldn’t turn anyone down for the life of him—which inevitably led to him being met with a chorus of furious boos and just enough money to make it to the next city.

Nino did _not_ like it when they booed.

His headaches still plagued him, and seemed to be growing in frequency the older he got.

In Tangier, he found the answer to one of his problems: Fight groups.

It all started when he reached the port, seeking passage through the strait. The captain of a vessel headed that way bet him that he couldn’t take on three of his sailors at once, and Nino, eager to cut costs where he could, agreed.

It was a simple enough victory for Nino, but for the first time in his life, someone other than his parents was cheering him on. No longer did fighting make him feel like a bully; once the odds had been evened, people were shockingly accommodating.

The captain gave him free passage, though he did what he could to help around the ship.

“You ought to join a circus,” the captain suggested as he disembarked. “There’s good money in the circus, and not nearly so many corsairs after you as in sailing.”

“I just might,” said Nino—and he did.

In the circus, he fought groups of five at first; then ten, then twenty, until finally they had to start arming his opponents, as he was simply too prodigious.

They toured the Atlantic, and Nino’s act (“The Bubbler”) was as popular as the rest, until one day, in the middle of Greenland, his popularity ran out.

He had just defeated a group of ten, all armed to the teeth, when he was met with a horribly familiar sound:

“BOOOOOOO!”

His heart sank in his chest, and he stared around the crowd in dismay. It was simply too easy, and they could all tell; there was nothing he could do to appear to struggle that would fool even the slowest audience member.

The rest of the company grew tired of the booing _very_ quickly.

They made it through two more towns before the ringmaster took Nino aside and said, “Look here old boy, it’s nothing personal—we’ve just had enough of all the shouting. I’m sure you’ll figure something out. Good luck!” and wheeled the caravan away into the hills.

Which was how Nino came to be crying on a rock in Greenland, without a friend in the world.

He was still sitting there the next day when Papillon found him.

Papillon offered him a medicine to cure his headaches, but Nino didn’t care as much for the remedy as he did for the promise to keep the booing away. Papillon needed Nino, but not half as much as Nino needed Papillon. As long as Papillon was around, he couldn’t be alone. Whatever Papillon said, Nino did—and if that meant crushing the skull of the woman in red, so be it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> alright nino grew up in Casablanca, it's never explicitly stated because the name changes date it and i'm trying to keep the date ambiguous a la the original franchise
> 
> [side eyes the nyctographs on Ladybug's sword] yeah.... ambiguous 
> 
> similarly the earthquake was heeeeavily based on the 1755 Lisbon earthquake, which actually pretty much leveled Casa Branca but did ultimately get the europeans to fuck off, but god damn at what cost


	7. The Mountainside

Though killing her outright would be faster, Nino decided on a warning shot. Just because he had to dispose of her didn’t mean he had to be a coward about it.

As the woman in red cautiously picked her way through the boulders littering the area, he hurled a solitary stone against one, scarcely a breath from her face. It crumbled in a satisfying spray of gravel and dust, chipping at the surface of the boulder.

She whirled to face him, drawing her sword faster than he could track.

He eyed it warily; there was no blood along its length, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything. Alya always cleaned Trixx before sheathing it.

“You kill her?” he asked gruffly, gaze traveling from the blade to her masked face.

“You’re going to need to be more specific,” said the woman in red, rubbing the toe of one boot into the dirt, testing her ground. Once, while passing through the mountains, Nino had seen a lioness face down an Atlas bear with the same guarded patience.

But the bear had won.

“Alya,” said Nino, raising a second rock. “Alya Césaire. The sword.”

“Is that how you all refer to each other?” huffed the woman in red. “What do they call you, the projectile weapon?”

It wasn’t a real question, but he answered anyway, tightening his grip on the stone. “Nino Lahiffe. The giant.”

She raised an eyebrow.

“Well, at least they’re fitting, as nicknames go. She’s fine. I mean, she’s unconscious, but she _will_ be fine.” She studied him for a moment, raising a hand in supplication. “We have no quarrel, you and I. We could simply part ways here, me to my quarry and you to your friend.”

Nino paused, considering. They could. He could go down to check on Alya and let the woman in red do as she would. He might have even done it if he had been prepared to face Papillon’s wrath—but whether or not the woman in red was telling the truth about Alya, there was nothing he could do for her that he couldn’t do after following orders. If they both survived, Papillon would abandon him on the Guilder frontier, or perhaps just kill him outright.

He was not so naïve as to think the woman in red would spare him; it was likely she’d only spared Alya out of respect for her swordsmanship, and in Nino’s experience very few respected him past the initial novelty of his size. So this would be a battle to the death.

“I’m sorry,” he said sincerely, and she lowered her hand with a grimace, “I really do have to kill you. It’s nothing personal.”

“I’m sure,” she said dryly, shifting back into a fighting stance. It occurred to him that crushing her head with a rock wasn’t much less cowardly than ambushing her.

“How about we face each other as nature intended?” he proposed abruptly, “No tricks, no weapons; skill against skill alone.”

“You mean you’ll put down your rock and I’ll put down my sword, and we’ll try to kill each other like civilized people?”

“I could just kill you now,” he suggested, raising the rock a little higher. “I’m trying to give you a chance. Killing people when they can’t defend themselves is for bullies.”

“Then I guess I accept,” said the woman in red, sheathing her sword and removing her scabbard. “I wouldn’t want to make you a bully. Although I think we may have different, uh… criteria, for the label.”

“Do you kill people who can’t defend themselves?”

“Only when they deserve it.”

Nino snorted, placing his rock neatly atop what remained of his stockpile as the woman in red laid her sword on the ground. “I’ve never been great at determining who deserves it. I just follow orders.”

“I take it Papillon is the brains of the operation, then?” asked the woman in red, taking a few blades and vials from her belt and laying them beside the scabbard. “Granted, ‘the sword’ was pretty smart, but I doubt she predicted her own defeat.”

“Yeah,” said Nino, shrugging. “You know, we don’t always agree with him, but—we owe him a lot. Everything, in fact. And we’re both terrible at plans. So it goes best if we just do as he says.”

“Yet she helped me up the cliff, and here you are, deciding to give me a sporting chance,” the woman in red hummed, tilting her head to one side as she regarded him, speculation clear in her eyes, a pale blue that stood out against the red of her mask.

Nino shrugged again. He just knew he wouldn’t have felt right about it; he really was more for crowd control and breaking down doors than for cold blooded murder. Alya might have been more pragmatic about it, but knowing her? She’d gotten bored. Alya hated waiting.

Papillon might not approve of their decisions, but as long as the woman in red died, what did it matter how?

“Why do you wear a mask?” he asked her instead, tilting his head to mirror hers. “Are you disfigured? Burnt by acid or something?”

“Your boss wears a mask,” she answered, an evasive smile curling over her lips.

“Not always,” Nino disagreed. “Only when he might be recognized.”

“That can’t happen very often.”

“No,” he agreed. “But I don’t recognize _you_ , and I’ve been with Papillon since he started all this. Do you have six fingers on your right hand?”

“Uh… no?” She held her hand up as evidence, raising an eyebrow.

“Sorry. Alya’s looking for a six-fingered woman. I—well, probably the fact that you made it out alive should have told me you didn’t, but I had to check.”

“I mean, I don’t think the mask would do much of anything if my hand was just gonna give it away instantly,” she said, chuckling. “Although your friend figured me out pretty much immediately.”

“Is it wanted posters?” he guessed sympathetically. He’d had some trouble with them in the past. Well, trouble was a strong word. He’d had to knock some guards down with minimal effort in the past. Not too many were willing to even try to apprehend him.

“In a manner of speaking,” said the woman in red, her shrug turning into a roll of her shoulders. She was stretching, he noticed—flexing her fingers experimentally, rubbing a cut on her left wrist, doubtless a souvenir from her encounter with Alya. “It’s really best if no one gets a chance to paint the damn things in the first place.”

“Wait, wait,” said Nino, growing excited. No wanted posters? Good sailor? Inexplicable color scheme? “Are you the Dread Pirate Ladybug?”

The woman in red groaned loudly. “You know, for not being the brains of the outfit, you’ve both been a little too sharp for your own good.”

“I didn’t know you dressed like a ladybug!” Nino exclaimed with a gleeful laugh. “I thought it was like, a metaphor!”

“Wh—I’m not dressed like a ladybug! I’m just wearing red!”

“With black spots!” he crowed, pointing at the thick black stitching along her shoulders.

“Red is intimidating! Like blood! No quarter!”

“And you’re so small! You’re like, bug-sized!”

“I’m a ferocious and barbarous pirate and I’m _not a bug!”_

“You’re so teeny I could pick you up in one hand, I could just carry you around in my pocket like a little good luck charm—”

“I’m not teeny, you’re just _massive,_ I half expect you to pull out a beanstalk and start going ‘fee fi fo fum’—”

“You’d be safe, Ladybug. You’d be warm. Like a little kangaroo.”

“Oh my god, can we just fight to the death already?”

“Ready when you are,” he laughed, hunching over slightly.

She charged him without another word, throwing the full weight of her body into her shoulder, digging it into his stomach with a savage twist that would have thrown a normal-sized man to the ground, breathless.

Nino just chuckled as Ladybug staggered back a few paces, clutching her shoulder.

“Oh, good. You’re enjoying this,” she said sourly, glaring up at him.

“No, no. That was a great move. I’m… wheezing. In, uh… agony.”

“Sure,” she grumbled, looking him up and down. Probably for weaknesses—not that she’d find any. Nino didn’t like to brag, but he was built like a wall and he intended to use it to his advantage.

While she was looking for an opening, he swiped a massive hand at her, slower than he could have done but eager to test her speed. It must have been good to get past Alya. She sprang back from him as though his hand was a hot poker. Probably a good decision: even a glancing blow at this strength was enough to break bone.

He sped up slightly as he pursued, and her fierce expression flickered in surprise at the sudden burst of energy. As his left hand swung towards her, intending to snatch her forearm (they were roughly the same size) she did a standing backflip away from him, leaving Nino the surprised one, watching her flit up into a wind-beaten cypress that clung to the tops of the boulders.

“Trees are cheating!” he called, with no real venom. She glowered at him from behind the flaking bark, with more than enough venom for both of them.

“Oh, I’m sorry, do you prefer the higher ground?” she asked, dripping with sarcasm.

“Not necessarily—I’ve got a lower center of gravity now,” he told her, grinning as he clambered onto the boulders behind the tree. It wouldn’t support his weight, but he wasn’t planning on climbing out there after her. She was perched on one of the farthest branches, little more than a twig to him. She looked like a squirrel, itching for flight. “I’m not so smart, but I know a thing or two about fighting.”

“You’re plenty smart,” she disagreed warily, watching him. “Although it’s apparent you don’t know how to use the environment to your full advantage.”

“Who needs the environment?” he asked innocently. “I’ve got my strength.”

With that, he began ripping up the roots of the cypress.

Ladybug swore as she grabbed the branch she was on with all four limbs, holding on for dear life as he shook the entire tree back and forth, snapping whatever he couldn’t uproot with minimal effort. On her distal perch she was shaking so much her edges were beginning to blur. Nino laughed heartily and grabbed the underside of the tree with both hands, upending it onto the path they’d traveled to reach the boulders.

He jumped down to inspect the tree, landing with a very loud _Thud!_ and checking to see if she was trapped under the branches or had managed to roll away from the wreckage.

The answer appeared to be neither.

Nino frowned, looking around the narrow field of scree for a flash of red.

Nothing.

Uh oh.

“Uh… Ladybug?” he called cautiously, taking a few steps back so the boulders were behind him, and the shattered trunk of the cypress was providing a low wall that would prevent her from sneaking up on him, but wouldn’t hinder him at all.

She hit him less like a cannonball and more like an arrow, all of her (considerable) strength focused on a single point of attack. Her arms wrapped around his throat with expert precision, though they were scarcely able to make it all the way into a stranglehold through the layers of muscles and thickened skin.

Nino let out a surprised huff, and instantly regretted it when her arms tightened that much further around him. He hurled himself backwards into the face of the boulder, and felt her bend her legs up under herself, absorbing the force of the impact.

When this had no effect on her grip, he began to panic. His whole body was buzzing, pins and needles were starting in his extremities, and his head was swimming. He staggered forward, spinning in a clumsy circle that hurled them both into the boulder—but still her hold did not loosen.

Nino had enough time to register that he was beaten, that he’d never draw another breath, and then everything faded in a swirl of light and a heaviness of limbs, and he crumbled to the ground.

He was only half wrong.

Ladybug released her hold immediately, climbing off the prone giant. Though he had initially tipped backwards, she’d managed to kick them forward off the boulder, so neither wound up crushed.

She rolled him over with no small degree of effort, grabbing one hand and hauling with all her strength until he rocked onto his back. She checked his pulse and made sure he was breathing, then looked for some rope to tie him up. When she couldn’t find any, she shrugged to herself; honestly, he could have snapped whatever she’d found anyway.

She settled for propping his head up slightly on one of the smaller rocks, to ensure his airway stayed clear. She couldn’t imagine he’d be so fragile, but she’d never really strangled anyone so massive before, and if he weighed enough to squash her like a bug, his lungs must work hard enough already.

“Right,” she said to herself, dusting off her hands and reattaching her weapons. “Two down, one to go.”

Ladybug took off up the side of the down as the sun climbed higher in the sky.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the long wait! I've been out of state and my cat hasn't left me alone for more than five minutes since I got back. I mean, I'm not complaining, but it's pretty hard to write and snuggle at the same time, you know? He's licking my face as i'm writing these notes and it's v hard to type, he's got my arms kind of pinned so i'm going at this with one hand now. 
> 
> "Just move the cat, Clare," you say. "I can't we're codependent as hell," I reply, tucking him in like a human child 
> 
> not a lot to say about the chapter itself; i changed the chokehold to a stranglehold because it's significantly less likely to result in death, and also works like, way faster. chokehold takes out your air supply, stranglehold cuts off blood flow to your brain. mentioned nino's thickened skin, too, which is another symptoom oh thank god my cat got off my arm, uh well it's another symptom of his acromegaly, which it occurs to me now i never actually explained... basically it's a consequence of the pituitary adenoma that's causing his gigantism. It's the source of his headaches. Andre the Giant actually ended up dying from it so like, it's p important that Nino either continues to get his meds from Papillon, or finds some alternative treatments. 
> 
> i'd also like to say, you know, sorry for all the banter? like i can't help it, man. nino loves to talk and i love to hear him


	8. The Tensest Brunch of All Time

Adrien found himself missing the other two members of the mercenary party.

Papillon was smug and irritating and gave long-winded speeches as he led Adrien over the rocky terrain, and if the knife he pressed to Adrien’s ribs was any indication, he was the eager executor of the whole ‘murder the hostage’ scheme.

Despite the man’s ranting, Adrien still wasn’t sure why he hadn’t been murdered yet. Papillon was expounding his own virtues while telling Adrien far too many details about his plan to start a war, but all he had said of their pursuer was things would be settled ‘soon’.

Adrien found little comfort knowing he would be in the custody of either Papillon or this red phantom on their heels. Frankly it made little difference to him which survived the implied conflict; Papillon would probably be easier to defeat (he certainly couldn’t scale a cliff face on his own) but he was also getting very, very annoying.

Plus, Adrien was curious.

Who was this girl? How had she learned so swiftly of his plight? What were her plans for him, and were they perhaps less murder-oriented?

Hiking with his hands tied together, sweltering under the hot sun, Adrien decided he’d worry about it later.

At the crest of a hill, Papillon led him to a series of rocks, partially in shadow.

“If you move so much as a finger,” said Papillon, with a menacing dig of his blade, “I’ll cut it off.”

For someone with such a high opinion of himself, Papillon didn’t seem to take the intellect of others into account when laying his plans. Adrien reclined in the shade, looking on as the older man laid out an elaborate table setting on a relatively flat boulder, quite glad he was being either under- or overestimated.

Either Papillon thought _so_ well of Adrien’s physical prowess that the dramatic threat was supposed to discourage him from bursting free of his ropes, overpowering Papillon, and sprinting into the Guilderian hills, or he thought Adrien was so unintelligent that he’d try to stop his enemies from eliminating one another and halving the risk.

As he watched Papillon straighten the edges of a checkered tablecloth, Adrien admitted that the man might just be indulging his theatric tendencies.

He heard rocks clatter a ways behind them, and looking over his shoulder saw the striking scarlet of their mystery woman.

“Ready or not,” he told Papillon, smirking in spite of himself, “here she comes.”

Papillon whirled around, hauling Adrien to his feet and depositing him beside the ‘table’ like he was setting props for a play. He sat beside Adrien, touching each piece of silverware a little neurotically, and brought out Adrien’s old pal Mr. Knife.

The woman in red reached the summit.

“So,” said Papillon, sitting a little taller, emphasizing his impeccable posture, “it is down to you, and it is down to me.”

Wordlessly, the woman began to move towards them. Papillon shifted his blade from Adrien’s ribs to Adrien’s throat.

“If you wish him dead, by all means, keep moving forward,” he hissed.

The woman stopped immediately. Adrien raised an eyebrow. That was interesting.

“Let me explain,” she said smoothly, taking another step.

“There’s nothing to explain. You’re trying to kidnap what I have rightfully stolen.”

Adrien rolled his eyes.

“I believe you mean ‘ _whom_ I have rightfully stolen’,” he corrected dryly. He knew he should let them squabble amongst themselves but come on, he wasn’t exactly unimportant in all this. The least they could do was refer to the hostage with pronouns.

“Perhaps an arrangement can be reached?” asked the woman, hands raised in a gesture of peace as she took another step forward. The blade pressed into Adrien’s throat so tightly that he actually felt its sting, and he sucked in a shocked breath as the woman froze before them.

“There will be no arrangement,” said Papillon, “and you’re killing him.”

Two pairs of masked blue eyes watched each other, two predators intent on their prey, while Adrien craned his neck away from the knife and silently wished they’d chosen a spot in the shade for this showdown.

 “If there can be no arrangement, then we are at an impasse,” said the woman. Her voice was cool and collected, almost refreshing in the heat. It was certainly a welcome relief from Papillon’s deep and endless drone.

“I’m afraid so,” said Papillon, his thin lips pursed in a patronizing smirk. “I can’t compete with you physically, and you’re no match for my intellect.”

“You’re that smart?” she asked, a lilt of humor in the incline of her chin.

“Let me put it this way: Have you heard of Plato, Aristotle, Socrates?”

“No, who’re they?” she asked innocently, and Adrien would’ve laughed if his neck wasn’t in danger of further bleeding. He wondered if this girl had talked to Alya for long.

“Morons,” answered Papillon, ignoring her sarcasm.

“Really.”

There was a pause as they once again regarded one other, the woman’s eyes glittering beneath her mask. Papillon met her stare with a level gaze, confident and smug.

“In that case,” said the woman, “I challenge you to a battle of wits.”

Papillon’s confidence leaked into a condescending smirk, inclining his head in her direction. She lowered hers accordingly, holding his gaze, her ghost of a smile somehow far more sinister to Adrien than his kidnapper’s.

“To the death?” asked Papillon.

“If you insist,” said the woman in red, dripping with mockery.

“I accept,” Papillon answered immediately.

He sheathed his knife, and Adrien raised his tethered hands to rub at the thin red cut it had left behind, scowling at his captor.

“Good,” said the woman in red, smiling as she at last approached the makeshift table. “Pour the wine.”

Papillon obliged, filling the two goblets (for there were only two place settings) halfway. The woman, taking a seat opposite them, removed a small vial from its place at her belt, offering it to Papillon.

“I have here a vial of poison, which can enter the bloodstream through the skin, and is capable of dropping a grown man in about five minutes.”

Delicately, Papillon unscrewed the lid of the vial. It contained a white powder which, to Adrien, looked perfectly innocuous.

“I wouldn’t touch it if I were you,” the woman in red warned, and Papillon shot her a deeply scornful glare, sniffing the powder as though it were a glass of the wine he’d just poured. He raised one eyebrow as he replaced the lid, not bothering to screw it back on as he passed it to her.

“I smell nothing,” he declared.

“What you do not smell is called akuma powder.  It’s odorless, dissolves instantly in most liquids, and is nearly as tasteless as wearing a silver ski mask in summer.”

Papillon looked supremely unimpressed.

With a wide smile, the woman in red picked up the two goblets, turning her back to Adrien and Papillon, making a great show of moving her elbows around. There was a muted clattering as she clunked the goblets together. With one in each hand, she turned back to the table, moving them around as though to set one in front of herself before ultimately putting it in front of Papillon.

Adrien was getting very bored of theatrics.

“All right,” said the woman, “Where is the poison? The battle of wits has begun. It ends when you decide and we both drink, and find out who is right… and who is dead.”

“Ah, but it’s so simple,” said Papillon, lips pursed, “all I have to do is divine from what I know of you. Are you the sort of woman who would put the poison in her own glass, or in mine?”

“That is the entire point of the exercise, yes,” said the woman in red.

“You wear a mask,” he began, examining what was visible of her expression, “so it’s clear you have something to hide. If you’re used to keeping secrets, it would stand to reason you would keep the poison close to you, where you could keep an eye on it—But if it’s simply to disguise a scar or disfigurement of some kind, it may be that you’re self-conscious—and if you’re self-conscious, you’d put the poison as far from yourself as possible.”

“Don’t you know what the mask is for?” she asked innocently. “Your underlings both figured it out. Here they told me you were smart one.”

“My underlings,” mused Papillon, ignoring the bulk of her question. “You’ve beaten them both. To have beaten Nino, you must be strong—so strong that you might chance poisoning yourself, counting on your fortitude carry you through.”

“Well—”

“And Alya was reasonably well-versed, if somewhat prone to jumping to conclusions. Even allowing for trickery, the only way someone of your age could defeat her would be through ingenuity. The environment, perhaps.”

“Is ingenuity tricks?”

“It certainly was with Alya. I suppose she knew a thing or two about swordplay, but when it came to deductive reasoning—”

“Inductive.”

“What?”

“Inductive reasoning. Deductive is when you formulate a deduction based on evidence.”

“And what, pray tell, do you call this?” asked Papillon, scowling and gesturing between at the wine glasses between them. The woman in red smirked at him, the same condescending, simpering way he had just minutes earlier.

“If I’m being kind? An outside chance. If I’m being honest: Wild and somewhat pathetic speculation, with no basis.”

“I’ve barely gotten started,” Papillon spat.

“By all means,” said the woman in red, gesturing for him to continue.

He frowned at her, brow furrowed beneath his mask, evidently deep in thought. His jaw jutted out as though he was resisting the urge to bare his teeth.

“You are a mercenary,” he said after almost a minute of silence. (Near silence: Adrien was not above sighing dramatically and making a show of checking the shadows’ lengths.) “Hired by the Guilderians to put a stop to my plan.”

The woman in red raised an eyebrow.

“The nation of Guidler can ill afford another war. Their economy never fully recovered from the Tuna Fish Discrepancy, no matter what they’d have the public believe. If they’re going to divert funds to reinforcing their navy now, they’d scarcely survive the winter.”

“And where do I fit into this theory?” asked the woman in red.

“Simply, Guilder got wind of our assignment—how, I cannot say—and recognized an opportunity. A fortuitous opportunity. They allow us to kidnap the Prince, not counting on the elaborate frame I constructed, and intended you to spirit him away following the abduction, assuming we would leave behind damning evidence. They were wrong, of course, but it can’t be helped; I’m very thorough.”

“So I allow you to kidnap him, then snatch him and hope the authorities catch you? Has the Princess issued a reward for his return? I can scarcely imagine she’d let me in the gates with him.”

“Oh, you’re not going to return him. You’re going to kill him.”

Adrien jolted a little, looking between the two of them. They were both wearing poker faces, which he found deeply unnerving. That couldn’t be right, could it? If she wanted him dead she would have just let Papillon slit his throat.

He stared at her, trying to find some hidden emotion behind the linen mask. All he could see was a stony expression and a pair of eyes as cool as her voice.

Okay, maybe she _did_ want to murder him.

At this point he really just wanted them to get on with it.

“Why am I going to kill him?” asked the woman in red, tone carefully neutral.

 “You know—as everyone does—that the King of Florin is gravely ill, nearing death. The Princess’s impending marriage is their dynasty’s last hope. Or should I say, second to last?”

“Ah. The Prince.”

“That’s right. The Prince of Guilder remains unattached, and though Chloé would never have him under ordinary circumstances, in her bereavement she might be forced to consider more drastic options.”

“So, just to be clear I’ve got this right: You kidnap the Marquis. _I_ kidnap the Marquis. I then murder him, depriving Princess Chloé of her stud-to-be, driving her into the arms of my alleged benefactor out of desperation. A political alliance is secured, you’re apprehended and convicted of the Marquis’s murder, and I carry on my merry way.”

“Exactly,” said Papillon, smugness oozing from every pore.

“Well—and I am sorry to burst your bubble like this—absolutely none of that is true. Except perhaps that no one would marry the Prince without significant duress.”

Papillon spluttered, ready to defend his reasoning, but the woman in red raised a gloved hand, and he fell silent automatically.

“You also haven’t guessed where the poison is,” she pointed out, very exaggeratedly looking between him and the wine glasses.

“Well, I will now, then—what in the world is that?” he yelped suddenly, staring at a point over her shoulder.

The woman in red whirled, hand on the saber at her hip, eyes scanning the empty down.

“Where?” she demanded, keeping her back to them as Papillon swiftly and silently exchanged his glass for hers. She turned back after a moment, frowning at him suspiciously. “I don’t see anything.”

“It may have been a wolf,” said Papillon, trying to contort his furious grimace into an innocent smile. The woman in red continued to look suspicious, but now with a hearty helping of discomfort.

“Well—I doubt it,” she said, like she knew as well as he did that there were no wolves in Guilder. “But come now: The wine.”

“Ah, yes. It’s in your glass,” he growled. He seemed to be growing angrier the longer she went thinking he was wrong. She smiled at the wine, lifting it accordingly.

“Then let’s drink,” she said.

“Let’s drink,” he echoed. Papillon snatched his glass off the table as though it had personally offended him, still scowling at the woman in red as they raised their respective drinks to their lips, swallowing in perfect synchrony.

 “You guessed wrong,” she said immediately. Her voice was soft, almost an apology, but Adrien could hear the bitter satisfaction beneath.

“You only _think_ I did, you stupid girl!” said Papillon, barking out a single, dry laugh. “I switched our glasses when you weren’t looking! I drank _your_ wine!”

“In point of fact, I provided the poison; the wine was yours,” said the woman in red, perfectly calm despite this revelation.

“And they’ll kill you both together!” Papillon cackled, his face cracking into the first genuine smile Adrien had seen on him since his abduction. It still looked fake somehow, more of a mask than even his silver cowl. He laughed and laughed, even taking another swig from his glass in jubilation.

He was quite cheery until the akuma powder took effect.

Adrien stared as the man slumped lifelessly to the ground. He wasn’t struck by the enormity of what he had just witnessed, or puzzling out what had just happened. He was instead seized by a powerful and irrational urge to rip away Papillon’s mask, to do something about the ridiculous costume he was still wearing.

When he was alive it had been rather funny; in death, it seemed… ghastly. A little nauseating.

“So it was your glass that was poisoned,” he said dully, staring at the body as the woman in red cut away the ropes binding his hands. Looks like he had a new captor.

“What?” she said, looking up at him in confusion and then laughing, shaking her head. “No, no. Neither of them was poisoned.”

Adrien moved his thousand yard stare from the lifeless corpse to the lifeless abductor.

“I _did_ tell him not to touch it,” she tutted, rubbing blood back into his wrist with an idle hand. “Told him it was soluble and everything. So what does he do? He goes and snorts it. Just inhales the akuma powder like smelling salts.”

“He was dying that whole time?” Adrien asked, feeling a little sick.

The woman in red got to her feet.

“He didn’t suffer,” she said. “I mean, _I_ wouldn’t mind so much, but I’m on a bit of a schedule and filleting the poor bastard would have taken up a valuable twenty minutes.”

She hauled Adrien to his feet by the back of his vest, and he stumbled as he righted himself, staring at her in bewilderment, feeling a twinge of something that might have been fear.

“Who are you?” he asked, scarcely a whisper. Was she a mercenary? Had that much been true?

“I am no one to be trifled with,” said the woman in red. “That is all you ever need know.”

She pulled him into a run behind her, leaving no room for argument.

∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙

                “This is taking _forever,_ ” Chloé exclaimed. She would have stamped a dainty foot on the ground, had she not been perched atop her enormous white horse.

Chloé—or rather, an array of Chloé’s servants—actually bred the creatures, selecting as much for aesthetics as utility. She demanded, as from all things, that the horses be obedient to a fault, and obey her every thought and whim, while still managing to reflect the diligence with which she attended her own appearance. The result was a series of animals which dwarfed their wild brethren, with immaculate ivory coats, and shining marble manes. Chloé looked delicate and beautiful atop them, the reflected sunlight casting a soft halo around her, and she looked more willowy than ever.

She looked like a painting in motion, but few could stand to listen to her for very long. The guard was changed out every fifteen minutes, and only the faithful Countess Rossi remained at her side throughout.

Where Chloé’s specialty was horses, the Countess had recently begun to take an interest in more aggressive beasts of venery: Specifically, foxhounds. They followed at her heels or her steed’s, trotting dutifully in her wake and awaiting an assignment. They received one almost daily, whenever she happened upon game—the Countess was by no means averse to a little bloodsport. Her dogs were black and tan and dedicated to their craft with a fervor that bordered on frenzy. They paced eagerly behind her, some whining eagerly, checking the scent on the piece of Guilderian uniform they’d discovered on the boy’s horse, which had unfortunately led only to the horse itself, the stallion’s scent having drowned out any more useful profile.

“Patience, Your Highness,” said the Countess, “We’ll get there soon.”

They had sailed for the better part of the night, only to discover their quarry had ascended the Cliffs of Insanity, rendering an equine pursuit impossible. Chloé, not one to be deterred by things like “horses can’t climb cliffs” or “the nearest port is two hours North” had demanded a solution immediately.

Ultimately they had been able to secure a hold on a sawn-off piece of rope dangling most of the way down the cliff face, and, using that to climb and secure anchor points, built a ramshackle but sturdy platform from pieces of an abandoned ship (likely belonging to the culprits), on which, via a series of pulleys, they were in the process of raising the Princess, the Countess, and their menagerie.

“He’s _mine,_ Lila,” said Chloé, her furious gaze fixed on the clifftop above them.

“You can’t blame _me,_ ” said the Countess, huffing. “I could hardly provide an escort; the boy hates me.”

“This had better work out,” said the Princess. “That’s all I’m saying.”

“The dogs will find anything there is to find,” said the Countess in a soothing tone. “It’s not too late. Not yet.”

They reached the top of the cliff, and followed the dogs onto solid land. The ground had been disturbed by the work of the servants, but only near the edge; the Countess reigned in her dogs until she could inspect the scene.

“There was a duel,” she said, examining the footprints and kicked up leaves. Vines had been ripped from walls and branches, and there were fresh gashes in the bark of a few trees. “The loser was tied and abandoned, while the winner carried on to the east.”

“There are two groups?” the Princess demanded, stiffening in her saddle.

“Two people, at least. It looks as if the winner was following those tracks towards the frontier. They seem to have been bleeding, though not heavily.” The Countess beckoned her dogs, training them on the scent of the scant drops of blood that peppered the courtyard.

“The Guilder frontier,” said Chloé, grimacing out at the hills in the distance. “Agents of Guilder, then. If he’s been so much as bruised, I’ll raze the whole country.”

“I know, Your Highness,” said the Countess, watching as her dogs began to bay and wriggle. “We’ll find him. One way or another.”

The party took off across the moor, following the foxhounds after the missing Marquis.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Listen, you can't just... inhale poison. If you go around snorting arsenic, you're gonna get real sick, real fast. 
> 
> on an unrelated note I made Lila's foxhounds black and tan because as I was reading about foxhounds I discovered that's a kind of 'em--and since Lila's a Bad Guy™, it made sense to name her dogs after the Black and Tans, whom I hate.


	9. The Hills of Guilder

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [muffled space jam theme]

They tore across the hills, the woman in red not releasing Adrien’s arm until she tossed him unceremoniously against a standing stone, telling him without looking at him, “Catch your breath.”

“What is this?” asked Adrien, panting. He leaned back against the cool stone, grateful for its shade. There had been too much hiking and running and life-threatening situations that day, and he _really_ hadn’t gotten enough sleep. “You want a ransom? You could just send a letter to the palace. There’s no need for all this… physical activity. Princess Chloé would hardly refuse you.”

She laughed at him—a cruel laugh, void of humor.

“A bit winded, are we? Don’t worry Your Highness, I’m sure your dearest love will come and save you soon.”

“I never said she was my dearest love,” he protested immediately, “but she certainly won’t let me be kidnapped for long. She’s far too concerned with her image to let _two_ packs of hooligans make off with me.”

The woman in red stilled, staring at him. Her gaze was unfathomable, and Adrien met it with defiant confusion. Granted, he’d already been kidnapped by _one_ pack of hooligans, but he didn’t think it was unrealistic to expect Chloé’s intervention—particularly when his new captor seemed to be solidly in the ‘don’t murder hostage’ camp.

“You admit to me you do not love your fiancée,” she said finally, after so long a pause that Adrien had actually managed to catch his breath. Her voice was as inscrutable as her expression, and Adrien’s confusion deepened.

“She knows I do not love her,” he said after a moment.

“Does she? Or are you filling her head with empty promises? I shouldn’t wonder to find you incapable of love entirely,” said the woman in red, and her tone was suddenly heavy with contempt.

Adrien reared to his full height, back coming away from the support of the boulder. His hands were balled into fists, his jaw clenched, his mouth warped into a terrible grimace.

“I have loved more deeply than a killer like yourself could ever _dream,_ ” he spat, voice shaking with fury. This woman could do whatever she planned on with him, murder him, ransom him off, whatever—but he would not stand by and allow her to demean, however unknowingly, the way he had felt about Marinette.

Unbidden, his nightmares from the previous evening sprang to his mind. Marinette, the sea, the screaming. The screaming that felt like it was ripping from his own throat when he had seen her torn away from him again.

The way he had felt about Marinette? The way he still felt. The way he’d always feel. And this woman, just because she’d saved his life, felt entitled to debasing the constant agony he struggled to bury? He glared at her more ferociously than he’d known he could. It had been a long time since he’d felt anger.

Abruptly though, the woman in red looked just as furious.

“Do _not,”_ she hissed, “talk to me about _dreams._ ” She lunged towards him, and he flinched instinctively, raising an arm in defense. But her hand simply clamped around his wrist, and she pulled them back into a run, Adrien dragged bewildered and seething in her wake.

∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙

They stopped at the lip of a ravine, and she set him on a low rock a little more gently than the previous shove.

“Rest, Highness,” she said, turning away from him again.

Adrien was so angry he was shaking. All five years of lost and suppressed emotion seemed to be catching up with him at once.

“I know who you are,” he accused, his voice deep and rough, almost a snarl. “You’re not a mercenary. You’re the Dread Pirate Ladybug, admit it!”

“With pride,” she said, with a mocking bow, “What can I do for you?”

“You can die slowly, suffering under teeth of wolves and tongues of flame.”

She raised an eyebrow.

“Hardly complimentary, Your Highness. Why loose your venom on me?”

“You killed my love,” Adrien whispered, and had to shut his eyes against the flood of emotion. He had no idea how to regulate the feelings and images that assaulted him. Her laugh, the way she chewed her lips when she was drawing, the songs she made up when she didn’t know he could hear.

Knowing that they would always be together. Knowing that she loved him.

Knowing she was gone.

“It’s possible,” said Ladybug, and the detachment with which she spoke jolted him back to the present. “I kill a lot of people. Who was this love of yours? Another princess? Striking, rich, selfish?”

“No,” he bit out, “A farm girl. Poor. Poor and perfect. With eyes like the sky in early autumn.”

Her eyes. Her beautiful, endless eyes that he felt he could have stared into forever. She’d been so lovely in the crisp air, laughing and twirling and promising to bring him a present to match her earring necklace from the harvest festival.

“In early autumn your ship attacked,” he heard himself saying. He was having a hard time staying rooted in their conversation, which really wouldn’t do. He was pretty sure he had never wanted to do anything more than he had wanted to avenge Marinette, except to have never lost her. So he had to stay ready, and lucid. He had to wait for his chance and kill Ladybug before she realized what he was doing and stabbed him or something equally drastic.

Purpose sharpened his vision, and things came into focus. “The Dread Pirate Ladybug never takes prisoners.”

She just looked at him. Expressionless, emotionless, not even bothering with excuses.

Another tremor of fury racked Adrien’s body.

“Do you even care?” he demanded of her, jaw white from the force with which he clenched his teeth. “Do you feel bad about all the lives you’ve taken? Do you feel _anything?_ ”

This seemed to get to her. “Do you?” she challenged, barking out a cruel laugh.

They glared at each other again, until Ladybug’s face smoothed back into its usual calm.

“I remember this farm girl of yours, I think,” she said conversationally, “This would have been what, five years ago?”

Adrien clamped his mouth shut. Five years. A quarter of his life without her. At the prospect of living another five and diminishing the fraction, his anger was almost (almost) overcome with a wave of despair.

“Does it bother you to hear?” asked Ladybug, when he remained silent.

 “Nothing you can say will upset me.”

Well, that was a lie. He wished he could return to his emotionless fugue. What he wouldn’t give for some good old fashioned hysteria right about now.

“She died well—that should please you. No bribe attempts or blubbering. She just said she needed to live, she absolutely had to. When I asked why, she said ‘true love.’”

Ladybug looked at him. Adrien struggled to maintain his composure. He’d done so well before the crowds yesterday; why was this damnable woman any different? He had to stay calm. He had to get the upper hand.

“And then she spoke of a boy of surpassing beauty and character; I can only assume she meant you.” She stalked around him as she spoke, her arms crossed loosely over her chest in an obviously deliberate attempt to look casual. It only served to enrage Adrien further.

She turned her piercing eyes on him. “You should bless me for destroying her before she found out what you really are,” she told him, low and rough and accusing.

 “And what am I?” Adrien erupted, shooting to his feet. He was at least a head taller than Ladybug, but she didn’t so much as flinch beneath his glare. He had anticipated her backing up a step or two, and now found himself uncomfortably close, close enough she could simply push him over the edge of the ravine.

The danger was nothing; all his half-cocked plans for revenge were abandoned in the face of her accusations. He’d sooner die than let her carry on.

“She thought you loved her, she told me of your enduring faithfulness, your unwavering support. She told me you would be waiting for her and scarcely a month after, news reached my ship of the Princess’s betrothal. Tell me, did you get engaged that same hour, or did you wait a whole week out of respect for the dead?” Ladybug demanded, fists clenched at her sides, stance wide. She looked about as willing to attack as he was.

“Do not _mock_ my grief! What have I to wait for? She’s gone! She’s gone and I’ll never see her again, and I can’t—I can’t even—follow! It doesn’t _matter_ what I do! You should have just let them kill me—damn it—Damn you! Everyone would be h-happier if I were dead—” Adrien told her, hot tears finally coursing down his cheeks. They made up for lost time by pricking at his eyes and burning in his throat, choking him as he glowered at the one who had taken all the light from the world and asked to be _blessed_ for it _._

She stared at him, startled either by his words or the way he was now weeping defiantly at her. Her eyes were round with shock and blue, too blue, too much like his lady’s—

There was a distant rumble of hoof beats, and Ladybug turned, momentarily distracted. The Princess was coming.

As Ladybug stared, distracted, Adrien lunged, one hand grabbing at Ladybug’s mask, pulling it into her eyes, while the other grappled for the sword at her side.  His hand had just closed over the pommel when she yanked away from him, her mask torn violently from her face as she sprang back. 

Adrien had a split second to gape at the unmasked Ladybug, to take in her rueful grin and all-too-familiar face, before she vanished over the side of the ravine.

His stomach, his heart, his whole world, dropped out from under him.

“Mari—” he began to stammer, but before he could even finish he had launched himself down the hillside.

Tossed and spinning, crashing, torn, out of all control, he rolled and twisted and plunged, cartwheeling head over heels towards what was left of his beloved. Everything was a whirl of color and a series of harsh collisions and hope and fear and _hope,_ hope he hadn’t felt since the day he lost her.

He came to a rest at the bottom, groaning and clutching his head where it had banged painfully against the ground. It was a sharp pain, but his fingers felt dry where they threaded along his scalp, even as it throbbed in protest. His eyes were still burning from his crying.

And then he was enveloped in a pair of familiar arms, and felt he’d never know pain again.

Marinette lay draped over him, her eyes shining with unshed tears. She was tanner than he’d even seen her, and had more freckles than she used to. Adrien ran his thumb along them, tracing her every feature as if she were a dream he could will into reality. He brushed her hair with the very tips of his fingers, ghosting along her ears (they were pierced! When had that happened?) and the side of her neck, finding the cord of the necklace he’d made her.

She was still wearing it.

He was sobbing in earnest now, coughing out broken laughter as he struggled to blink the tears away enough to look at her. She was smiling at him, touching his face, lingering on the bite he’d received from the eels, pressing her palm into his cheek and running her thumb along his tremulous smile.

“Are you okay? I—well—are you hurt?” she asked him, and he laughed even harder.

“Hurt? You’re alive!” he declared, burying his face in her neck.

Pressed against the bottom of the ravine, they clung to each other like survivors of a shipwreck clinging to driftwood. Adrien gulped in lungfuls of her scent, his hands still roaming her face and neck and shoulders, desperate to relearn every dip and contour. Her cheek was against his hair and she clutched at him like he might disappear, fingers tangled in the fabric of his shirt and at the nape of his neck. Her gloves had been torn from her hands in the fall, and her bare skin felt like brands against his.

“Why didn’t you wait for me?” she whispered, drawing back to look him in the eye.

His face contorted as he tried to find the words.

“You were dead,” he managed, “You w-were dead a-and, oh god Marinette, you were _dead._ ”

He broke down completely, nearly howling with pent-up grief and joy and gratefulness that she was here, that she was _alive._ He pressed his face against her chest, nose flattened against her heart. He could feel it beating. Her heart, her indomitable, impossible heart, his very favorite part of her, strong and loud and fierce against his tear-streaked face.

“I love you,” he told her sternum, rolling his head around the anchor of his nose. The cool stones on her necklace were a shock against the heat of his closed eyes, another reminder that this was real. “I l-love you so much, I couldn’t—it wasn’t—without you, I—you w-were dead.”

“Death cannot stop true love,” she told him, her hand gently pulling his face away from her. He let his head fall back against the ground to drink her in again. She was crying now too, her cheeks blotchy and flushed, and so beautiful, so full of vitality he swore he could see her pulse beneath her skin.

“I shouldn’t have doubted. I never will. Not again,” he promised. She was here. She was alive and they were together and she loved him.

“There will never be a need,” she returned, and kissed him.

It was almost chaste, scarcely more than pressing their lips together; they were both in absolute ruins, and tasted more of the salt of their tears than one another, but Adrien’s heart stuttered in his chest at the familiar weight of her, the tickling of her damp eyelashes against his cheek, the heat of her shuddering breath as she tried to breathe and cry and kiss him all at once.

Alive, alive, _alive._

They started laughing in delight and broke apart, Marinette pressing her forehead against his as he gazed awestruck into her blue eyes. He’d managed to stop sobbing, but he could still feel tears leaking from the corners of his own.

“I haven’t cried in five years,” he told her, “I haven’t felt… I haven’t _been_ anything. I’m nothing, without you.” In the plainest, truest sense of the word.

“You’re _everything_ ,” she told him, tightening her grip on him. “You’re everything, and you’ll always have me. I will always come for you.”

“I’m sorry I told you I wanted you to be set on fire and eaten by wolves,” said Adrien, “…and pushed you off a cliff.”

“Well, you thought I had killed me,” she told him, grinning, absolving him immediately. “It’s not like I can’t relate; if someone so much as shoved you I’d be absolutely murderous.”

“I noticed,” said Adrien, chuckling as he touched the thin cut at his throat, thinking of Papillon. He’d have regretted staining Marinette’s hands over it, but knowing that the older man had been trying to kill his true love all day, Adrien kind of wished he’d been the one to dole out the poison.

They both looked up at the sound of approaching horses. Marinette sighed heavily.

“We need more time,” she said, scowling up the walls of the ravine. The princess’s party was not yet in sight, but doubtless would be soon. “I haven’t explained anything.”

“I get an explanation?” he teased, stretching up to kiss her cheek. She rolled her eyes and climbed off of him, standing and pulling him to his feet with one sure hand.

“Unless you’d prefer the allure of mystery,” she replied. He stood close, their raised hands clasped between them, and looked down at her, not even bothering to answer.

She stretched up and kissed his chin, then took off, pulling him into a run.

“More running?” he groaned as they raced along the ravine floor. “I haven’t slept much lately, my lady.”

Her hand tightened around his at the nickname, and she flashed him an apologetic smile.

“Just a bit further,” she assured him, “a few more steps and we’ll be safe in the fire swamp.”

“Safe,” Adrien repeated flatly, “in the fire swamp.”

“Well we can always double back and meet with your fiancée, but I don’t particularly fancy being shot today. I haven’t slept much either, you know.”

“If I explained the situation—”

“She would extra shoot me,” Marinette finished for him with a laugh. High and clear, a delicate sound that didn’t match what she was saying. She was bouncing with reckless energy, and the grin she carried as she spoke so lightly of injury had Adrien hesitating. He paused at the mouth of the fire swamp, looking at the ground.

She looked back at him, and her face immediately softened.

“Hey,” she said softly, reaching up to touch his face again. With anyone else Adrien wouldn’t have understood the constant need, but here, before the face he’d missed so desperately for five years, it was all he could do not to return the gesture. Touching her was a confirmation, a reassurance he knew he needed.

“Adrien,” said Marinette, and hearing her say his name almost had him breaking down again, “It’ll be okay. I won’t let her take you.”

“That’s not what I’m worried about,” he muttered, still refusing to meet her eye.

She waited, patient as ever.

“I just—we’ll never survive the fire swamp,” he told his feet, “and with the princess we’ll be taking a chance but if I keep you out of sight until I explain, then—”

“Adrien.”

She said it so gently that he _had_ to look up, and see the way she looked at him. She didn’t say anything else; it was simply a quiet plea. She wanted to know what was wrong.

“I’m scared,” he admitted in a whisper. “This is all my fault and now you’re trapped between the fire swamp and a bunch of angry politicians.”

“I’ll take the fire swamp any day,” she said glibly.

“If I hadn’t have stopped for those three yesterday, or if I had swum to you instead of freezing up against those eels, or—”

“Then we wouldn’t be together,” she told him, smiling again. “None of this is your fault, Adrien; you’re just beautiful enough to be a hot commodity in the kidnapping world. You stopped to help them because you’re kind.” She drew away from him slightly, her fingers tangled with his.

“You tried to swim to me anyway, because you’re brave.” She took a few steps back, not pulling on his arm, but carrying it with her, inviting him to follow.

“You made it very difficult to stay mad at you,” she concluded teasingly, and pressed a kiss to his knuckles.

He chuckled, letting her lead him where she would. Dried leaves crunched beneath their boots, conspicuous after the softer noises of the grass.

“Besides,” Marinette went on, “we can be scared together.”

He squeezed her hand in reply, moving closer to her as they were enveloped in darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay disclaimer i have noooo idea what i'm doing


	10. The Fire Swamp

Marinette held her sword in one hand, and Adrien’s clammy palm in the other. She tightened her grip in reassurance as she peered into the twisting maze of the fire swamp.

The trees were everywhere, massive and gnarled and growing so close together that walking beneath them felt like descending physically into night. The vegetation was scant, but a thousand varieties of fungi curled and sliced from every surface, and lichen draped itself from the cathedral of branches overhead. A reek of sulfur and smoke lingered in the air. The ground wasn’t very swampy at all, hard and dry and carpeted with fallen leaves and an inauspicious bramble or two. A faint orange glow suffused the entire forest, but it grew more concentrated beneath this crust of debris.

Marinette pushed a small patch of blackened and decaying leaves away, revealing a network of phosphorescent fungus that seemed to pulse under the toe of her boot.

“Foxfire,” she said aloud, looking to Adrien. He was watching the ground with fascination, his bright green eyes shining in the reflected light. The eager curiosity on his face, which had been reluctant and heavy with fear mere minutes ago, filled Marinette with a fresh rush of affection.

“There’s an oxidative enzyme in the fungus,” she explained softly when he turned to her, unable to restrain her smile as he watched her with undisguised interest. “It’s the same process as fireflies. Don’t eat any of them though; a crewmate of mine did once thinking they were chanterelles, and regretted it… rather fiercely.”

Adrien pushed at the leaves with his own foot to expose a larger swath of the underlying variegation. The patterns shifted as he swept his sole across them, dancing like light reflected off of water. He gave a small laugh of delight, beaming at her.

“You’re right,” he told Marinette, a little breathlessly. “We can do this.”

“And what makes you say that, all of a sudden?”

“We’re standing in the middle of the Guilderian Fire Swamp, surrounded by poisonous fungus, and, quite likely, snow sand, spurts of flame, and smoke cats.”

“So we are,” she said cautiously, more than a little concerned about where he was going with this.

“In less than a minute, you’ve not only rendered the fungus harmless,” said Adrien, stepping closer to her, “you’ve made it beautiful. I don’t know how long we’ll be in here, and I honestly don’t think it’s going to be much fun, but we can at least survive. You, evidently, can survive anything.”

“Death cannot stop true love,” she repeated, with a wry smile. “And if I survive, I’m damn well taking you with me.”

He chuckled and pressed a lingering kiss to her forehead that warmed Marinette to the tips of her toes. She’d never get tired of those kisses, of these moments. She felt as though she’d been in a blizzard for five years, frozen and frostbitten, and she’d finally been welcomed back inside. The small and tender gesture was a warm drink pressed into thawing fingers, and her earlier rush of affection became a torrent.

He loved her.

He loved her and he hadn’t forgotten her, he hadn’t given up on her or found someone he preferred. He had been swept up by circumstances outside his control, as she had been, but he still loved her. In spite of—well—everything. Just about everything. She was honestly having a hard time understanding what she’d done to deserve it, given her behavior in the past 24 hours alone.

“I love you,” she told him, because it was the most important thing in the world that he know that. She couldn’t remember if she had said it earlier—she certainly hoped the kissing had been a clue—but even if she had just finished saying it, it wouldn’t have been soon enough. So she said it again, for good measure. “Adrien, I love you.”

He drew back from her forehead and looked at her with so much raw emotion that she wondered how she could ever have doubted his feelings for her.

“I love you too,” he whispered, “Let’s kick the fire swamp’s ass.”

They set off at a slow pace, Marinette slightly ahead as she was the one with the sword, their hands still tangled between them. Adrien wove as he walked, stepping on the patches where the foxfire glowed brightest, still excited by the phenomenon and the caustic ripples he could elicit. Marinette swept lichen and vines from their path with the flat of her blade, watching carefully for movement ahead. She sawed through an especially long and sturdy vine with the knife at her side, winding it around herself like a rope. It seemed a handy thing to have, given the circumstances.

Almost immediately, they discovered the flame spurts. Preceded by a low rumbling, the ground would break apart from below, and instantly erupt into a blazing column of fire, spewed from the crack for anywhere from a few seconds to longer than Marinette and Adrien waited around to see. The sulfurous smell intensified as these spurts roared to temporary life, revealing the flammable gasses that were their source.

Skirting one of these pyrophoric vents, Adrien began to look nervous again. His eyes watched the flickering geyser and he strayed a little closer to Marinette’s side, his free hand reaching out to clutch at her forearm.

“So,” he began, in a failed attempt to sound casual, “Dread Pirate Ladybug, huh?”

She smiled at him, the same smile she’d given him when he’d first made that connection.

“The one, if not the only.”

“…You lost me.”

“Pop quiz,” said Marinette, “how long has Ladybug been sailing?”

“Twenty years, give or take a few—” Adrien paused mid-sentence, frowning. “Wait a minute.”

She continued to smile, letting him work the timeline out on his own.

“So you’re… _not_ Ladybug?” he asked, brow furrowed in confusion.

“Oh, I am,” said Marinette. She released his hand to wave her own through the air, gesticulating vaguely. “Let’s start at the beginning, I guess. I did promise you an explanation.”

Adrien kept one hand on her elbow, his eyes fixed on her with burning curiosity instead of watching where he was going.

“What I told you earlier—that was all true. And at first it didn’t really make a difference.” Marinette continued to sweep and slash the lichen and vines from their path as she spoke, watching where they were going so Adrien wouldn’t have to. “Ladybug was fairly apologetic, but still very firm: I had to die. Matter of principle, you know.”

“What changed?”

“I started talking about you,” she told him. “I don’t know that she felt guilty so much as she wanted to hear more, to be quite honest. She didn’t really believe me. Although I can’t blame her: You are a bit too good to be true.

“She had me go on describing you bit by bit—‘Eyes the color of summer,’ I said, ‘and hair like the autumn sun.’ I mean, you know me, I’ve no great gift for words, but I could wax poetic about your face for _years_.”

“See, I could probably, uh—wax _pathetic_ about it. It’s more trouble than it’s worth,” said Adrien good-naturedly, tossing his short hair as dramatically as he could.  “Wait! _Wane_ pathetic. Final answer.”

Marinette laughed, curling her wrist so they walked just a bit closer together. Even this, simply talking, felt somehow more complete with him at her side. There were no awkward little gaps in the conversation, no haltingly explaining a joke that had failed to land—he encouraged her to speak the way he did everything, gently and earnestly, and what she had been sure ten minutes ago was the strongest love she’d ever felt now seemed only a vague fondness compared to the depths of her current affections.

“ _Anyway,_ ” she continued, rolling her eyes at him, cramming her emotions away for a more appropriate time and venue, “she was interested now, at least a little, and by the end I knew I had her. She was unfortunately still pretty set on murdering me, as a pirate really can’t afford to let people think they’ve gone soft—particularly a pirate whose whole spiel is ‘No Survivors.’

“So I said, ‘I swear I won’t tell, that seems a pretty fair price for the whole not dying thing,’ or something to that effect, ‘and if you let me live, I will be your personal valet for five full years, and if I ever once complain or cause you anger, you can chop my head off then and there and I’ll die with praise for your fairness on my lips.’ And, you know, she seemed pretty interested. I don’t think anyone could frame five years of captivity and servitude as soft. She didn’t give in immediately, of course—she said, ‘Go below, I’ll most likely kill you in the morning.’”

Marinette stopped talking abruptly, and pretended to clear her throat to cover it up, not wanting to alarm Adrien or alert him to the enormous smoke cat she had just spotted following them.

Smoke cats, while rumored to be incorporeal and thought by some to be a will-o’-the-wisp variety of apparition, were unfortunately very real. They were named as much for their exclusive habitat—fire swamps—as for their coloration. With dusky fur that paled to silver at the roots, and a coal black marbling along the lengths of their bodies, they haunted the fire swamps like living shadows. Though it was often said they grew to be as large as lions, most were only the size of an especially big dog. They were principally ambush predators, drifting across the flickering forest floor or lurking high in the treetops as they stalked their prey. They almost exclusively had bright yellow eyes, and it was these that alerted Marinette to their presence as they watched she and Adrien pick their way through the swamp.

They glowed like embers, intent on their quarry, as the smoke cat sat perched on the bough of massive tree, its tail—the same length as the rest of its body—swinging like a pendulum beneath it. Though solitary creatures by nature, smoke cats had a deep partiality to fresh blood, and a tendency to frenzy. Marinette looked at Adrien, inspecting the healing wound on his temple to insure it had scabbed enough to keep him safe. Her wrist had stopped bleeding, and would be safe for a while, but she could protect it more easily than someone else’s head.

“Go on; what happened in the morning?” he urged, meeting her eyes.

“I cooked the crew breakfast,” she said simply, pulling him along so that she was in between him and the smoke cat, but still leading. “Their previous chef had been using pepper instead of salt _,_ so they were thrilled with some reasonable pancakes. Ladybug ate seven of them and thanked me, said she’d most likely kill me in the evening.”

“But she didn’t,” said Adrien, smiling again.

“No,” she confirmed, smiling back. God, he was adorable. He was so excited. “By evening I had found ways to make myself useful. I reorganized their storage room, and fixed up a very poorly patched sail, and had a talk with the chef about seasonings. I worked out a plan for cleaning the whole ship, so the rest of the crew could cut back on time spent doing chores.”

“And that’s when she decided to let you live?”

“Honestly, I think she decided that the minute she didn’t kill me outright. But she kept saying that to me for years—‘good work Marinette, delicious pancakes, I’ll most likely kill you tomorrow.’ Except eventually I ran out of things to do to improve the ship, so she started me on ways to improve myself. Taught me how to fence, and sail, and somewhere along the way, we became friends.

“And then one day, she called me into her cabin. I was half-convinced my luck had run out and she was finally going to kill me, but instead she told me there was something about her that no one knew yet: She had a secret.”

Adrien squeezed her hand, his eyes sparkling and wide as dinner plates. “What was it?” he whispered, as if the fire swamp was full of eavesdroppers.

“’I am not the Dread Pirate Ladybug,’” Marinette told him, biting back a giggle at his enormous gasp. He clapped both hands over his mouth, and she thought it was only half theatrics—he seemed as genuinely shocked as she had been.

“She said, ‘My name is Bridgette. I inherited this ship from the previous Dread Pirate Ladybug. She wasn’t the real Ladybug either; her name was Jeanne, and she’d inherited it from a woman named Hippolyta. The real Dread Pirate Ladybug has been retired fifteen years and is living like a Queen in Kaokoland.’”

“But—why?” asked Adrien, lowering his fingers from his face only slightly.

“The thing about piracy—for-profit piracy anyway—is if you’re good at what you do, and you don’t get caught, it’s a very lucrative business. I mean, I barely keep anything, and I’m richer than our whole hometown combined. Bridgette went after a different class of ship than I did, and she got even richer even faster. And once you’ve made your fortune, why bother, you know?” She shrugged as she walked ahead, peering contemplatively up into the dense branches overhead. “They were all fairly eager to enjoy their spoils, but a reputation’s a difficult thing to come by. No one is going to surrender to the Dread Pirate Marinette.”

“I mean, _I_ might,” said Adrien, chuckling at her heels.

“You’re biased,” she told him with a laugh. “You’d surrender just for a shot at flirting with me.”

“Well, true,” he agreed, a crooked grin splitting his face, “but I’d just as soon surrender out of blind terror. You’ve quite a temper, my lady, and…”

“And?” she prompted, tilting her head expectantly.

He didn’t answer.

“Adrien?” she asked, turning around to look at him.

Where he’d been standing a moment before, there was a blank expanse of sand.

Marinette swore loudly, ripping the vine off of her shoulders and tying a swift knot around a tree, wrapping the other end around her wrist and clenched hand, springing immediately into the bare earth.

Snow sand, a variety of dry quicksand, is found only under very specific conditions.

The Guilderian Fire Swamp has these conditions in abundance.

The finest grains of sand, silky and innumerable, were tossed and tumbled by the jets of marsh gas that wove under the hardened crust that composed the majority of the surface. Anywhere the ground was looser or lighter, it was fluffed up by these vents—anywhere it was thicker, they tended to result in flame spurts.

Moving through the snow sand didn’t feel like swimming, or even falling; it felt like floating. Eyes squeezed shut, a sailor’s lungful of air to hold, vine wrapped around her wrist, Marinette moved blindly through the powder. She’d dived in like an arrow, and though Adrien had doubtless been vertical while entering, he would know to spread himself flat as quickly as possible—or at least, she hoped he knew.

She swept her arms wide, feeling desperately for the slightest hint of her beloved. Did he have enough air? Had he kept his eyes shut? What if she found him and he couldn’t be saved? Had she come so far just to lose him now?

Her fingers brushed something hard and smooth, and she reflexively snatched it up, only to drop it as though scalded.

It was a hand, distinctly human, desiccated and detached from whatever pour soul had fallen into the snow sand’s pitiless grasp.

Gross. Gross, gross, gross gross gross.

She had to find Adrien. Immediately.

As though summoned by her renewed resolve, Marinette’s searching hands found something soft and warm, heavy and familiar. She drew him to her chest, pulling the vine in her other hand taut, wrapping it around her forearm as she hauled them both to the surface.

She broke into the open air with a dry gasp, Adrien’s head slightly ahead of hers. She pushed him onto solid ground as her legs kicked uselessly for traction, eventually flipping herself onto the mulch beside him. She brushed the sand impatiently from her eyelashes, breathing hard through her nose to dispel what had accumulated around her nostrils.

Adrien was lying still, his entire face caked in snow sand.

Marinette swore again, swiping what she could from his eyes and nose with one hand, while the other felt for a pulse at his throat. She sagged in relief when she found one, and felt the ragged breath in his chest.

She opened his mouth to check for any sand, finding it mercifully empty, though she could see a few grains in the back of his throat. He must have inhaled through his nose at some point, which explained the sound of his breathing.

She bent his left knee, drawing his left arm up towards his face, and rolled him gently onto his side, thumping him between the shoulder blades with the heel of her hand.

Adrien came awake with a deep cough, a plume of sand blossoming from his mouth as he hacked and convulsed with the effort. He opened his eyes as it subsided, a sliver of green amidst crusty blond lashes, a muddy tongue flicking over his chapped lips.

“Marinette?” he croaked, reaching for her automatically, his hand shaking as it curled into hers.

“Shh,” she hushed him, brushing the hair away from his face. “You’re alright. I’ve got you. Can you close your eyes for a minute?”

He did as she bade, probably more out of exhaustion than compliance, and she drew the canteen from her belt, pouring a slow trickle across his face. His expression screwed up as it passed over his eyes, and he licked his lips again on instinct. Without the sand in the way, his face was pale as a sheet, and Marinette rubbed comforting circles on his back as he wheezed on the ground.

“Thirsty,” he managed after she had finished cleaning his face. She helped him sit up, and after having him gargle and rinse, he took a long draught of water.

“Alright?” she murmured as he lowered the canteen. He nodded in response, dull eyes flickering to hers. He lifted his hands to her face, brushing the sand from her cheeks with shaking fingers. She laughed at him for being worried about her when he’d almost died, but closed her eyes obligingly beneath his ministrations.

“Thought I’d lost you,” she told him while he swept at her jaw, pressing her forehead against his with a small sigh. Her heart rate was only just beginning to slow.

“Doesn’t feel too great, huh?” he rasped, his voice still raw from the sand and coughing.

She felt a fresh wave of remorse for her actions over the past few years. “I’m so sorry I put you through that,” she whispered, opening her eyes. “I thought… I thought you loved her. I thought you were happier without me. Marquis of Carabas, free of his childhood fling, off to conquer the world. I couldn’t begrudge you that, no matter how much it hurt.”

 “Chloé came to me and said I could either marry her or die,” said Adrien. “Honestly at that point I was pretty ready to die, but she set your parents up with a castle in Carabas, and I never had to pretend I cared about her or anything, so I figured hell, why not? Just because I’d never be happy again didn’t mean I had to take everyone else down with me.”

“I had my parents moved yesterday,” Marinette confided with a small smile. “I sent some of my crew to pick them up. They’re all set up with a little house in Guilder, never have to work a day in their lives again. Provided they believed I was alive, I guess.”

“I’m sure they did,” said Adrien, returning her smile. “They never really accepted it. We got the news and I just sort of… shut down, but they didn’t buy it. Your mother especially.”

“We’re a stubborn sort,” she said softly. She didn’t like the way he was talking; he was blaming himself for believing she had died. “Adrien, listen: It’s not your fault. None of this is your fault. You did the best you could, you stayed alive—I’m the one who jumped to conclusions and left you all to fend for yourselves while I was off gallivanting across the seven seas.”

“You say that like it was easy,” he whispered, “but I can’t even imagine… if I had been in your place, and—and I came back to find you’d all moved on, that you were engaged to someone else—”

His voice broke, and she pressed her forehead into his more firmly.

“It wasn’t easy,” she admitted, because he needed to know that she cared. That she hadn’t just run off and abandoned him like his father, or gotten over him as quickly as she’d assumed he’d gotten over her. “When we got the news, I… it felt like I might as well have died, like what was the point? If I wasn’t doing anything worthwhile, if no one needed me, if I was just existing to be forgotten—”

“No one could forget you,” he broke in.

“That’s sweet,” she told him with a smile, “but grossly overestimates my significance. Not everyone is as aware of me as you are, you know.”

“They should be,” said Adrien, unapologetic, “but I’m sorry, I interrupted.”

“Well, I decided I was just going to be the best pirate I could be.” She shrugged, trying to play it off in spite of herself. He needed to hear it, and she probably needed to say it, but—it was hard to talk about. Just thinking about it had put a weight in her chest. “It was really the only way forward I could see. I’d… if I was never going to be with you, then I’d just take whatever road was at my feet. I had informants keep an eye on you, and my parents. I did what I could to make sure you were all safe. I hadn’t needed to get involved personally until yesterday.”

“You didn’t give up,” he murmured.

“On you? Of course I did,” she disagreed with a small, bitter laugh.

“No,” said Adrien, “on… living. On finding a way for yourself. I just did what other people told me, but you kept moving and learning and getting better and better. I only got prettier, and sadder.”

“It helped that I could still look out for you,” Marinette admitted quietly. “That I could still do things for you. Even when I was hurting, when I was so mad I wanted to turn up at the palace and scream at you—it helped that I knew I could. You didn’t have that.”

He shrugged, not meeting her eyes, swallowing thickly. They were so close she could hear the rasp in his throat.

“Besides,” she went on, voice growing a little stronger, “from what I hear, you were learning quite a lot. You weren’t just getting prettier and sadder. They were teaching you etiquette and politics and all that.”

“It’s not like I cared about it,” he laughed. “I know like six different ways to bow. It’s useless.”

“I certainly didn’t care about the things I was learning,” she told him. “I think we both did our best with our worst case scenario. We believed terrible things of each other, and—well—went a little off the rails, emotionally speaking, but we did our best. We tried our hardest. Sometimes all that meant was getting up in the morning, or eating enough, but… we did it. We made it, and now we have each other.”

The smile he gave her was radiant.

“We have each other,” he echoed breathlessly, returning her earlier pressure on his forehead. His eyes were half-closed, and Marinette’s own were having a hard time remaining open. Her blinks were slow and languid, lids heavy simply from his proximity.

The second kiss since their reunion was unlike the first, which had ultimately been a joyous affair, overflowing with emotion and affection and a fair amount of tears.

The second was slow, and sad, and carried the weight of what they had been through, the sharing of a burden they could never fully express.

Remorse heavy on the back of her tongue, Marinette pressed against Adrien’s chapped lips with a wordless catalogue of her every transgression. The years she’d spent doubting him, or cursing his name, or even wishing they had never met at all. The lies she had told him through her silence, the fate she’d led him to believe she’d met, the blindness she’d inflicted on him under the hands of his kidnappers.

This kiss was a question, an appeal for forgiveness she knew she didn’t deserve.

Forgiveness she received anyway.

Adrien sighed into the kiss like _he_ was the one who needed absolution, so ready to welcome her back with open arms and an open heart that still showed the scars she had left. Her guilt beat into her with each thrum of her pulse, eating away at her, pulling her away from the beautiful creature before her. He deserved so much better than what she had put him through on the basis of an assumption—she left him with his own assumptions, to believe her dead and gone.

She began to draw away, opening eyes that had fallen shut and meeting Adrien’s gaze. She stilled at the weight of it, at the guilt she saw mirrored there, the desperation for her understanding, the strangled adoration he could never suppress. He followed after her, asking his own questions, seeking his own forgiveness.

She was only too ready to give it.

∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙

                “I’ve had it,” Chloé announced, reigning in the great white horse beneath her.

“Had what, Your Highness?” asked the Countess, almost absently. Her eyes were trained on her hounds, milling about the corpse they’d discovered.

“ _It_ ,” said Chloé, throwing her hands in the air. “We’ve been at this for _hours_. Do they have the scent or not, Lila? We’ll never find him at this rate!”

“They have the scent,” said the Countess. She dismounted to inspect the body alongside her dogs, pulling off the silver cowl to reveal a shock of silver hair, and blue eyes clouded by death. “So this is the great Papillon. He’s not much in person, is he?”

“He looks to have been awfully tall,” said one of their guards, when she looked to him for an answer. He seemed nervous to even speak in the presence of the Countess and Princess Chloé.

“No one’s tall when they’re laid out,” said Countess Rossi with a disinterested sigh. “It’s a pity. I would have liked to take at least one for questioning.”

“There’s still whoever’s got _my_ fiancé,” Chloé supplied with a sour pout.

“True,” the Countess agreed, brightening. “And if the forensics are to be believed, they’re even better than those we’ve passed. We might be in for a truly glorious bout of scientific discovery, Your Highness.”

“Let’s focus on catching them first, shall we?”

The Countess hummed thoughtfully.

“They’re heading into the fire swamp,” she said, pointing ahead of her baying hounds where they whined and paced to resume the chase. “Take a portion of the guard around to the other end.”

“Excuse me?” said the Princess, voice dangerously sweet. While the Countess was the closest thing she had to a friend, station was not to be forgotten, and she was not to be spoken to that way.

“I humbly suggest,” said the Countess, with a bow a little too elaborate to be anything but sarcastic, “that Your Highness and the most dedicated of her retinue move to cut off the escape of the fiend which has most recently stolen her beloved.”

“You should learn to curtsey,” said the Princess, signaling the guard to accompany her as she wheeled around to face the far end of the Fire Swamp. The Countess smiled. The Princess tended to criticize that sort of thing only when she had nothing else to complain about.

“I know how to curtsey,” said the Countess, “but it’s rather difficult when one’s not wearing skirts.”

“Perhaps I’ll have some better dresses made for you,” said the Princess.

The Countess stayed a while with her hounds, sousing out the order of events. Whoever they were tracking, whatever their motive: They were a fearsome warrior.

∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙

“Ow!” said Marinette, clutching at her forehead where it had banged painfully into a low-hanging branch.

“Are you okay?” asked Adrien from behind her, chuckling. She turned a half-hearted scowl his way, sticking out her tongue.

“I’m fine,” she grumbled, “just got a bit distracted, is all.”

“By?”

“I was… checking for snow sand.”

The look he gave her was deeply skeptical. “Be honest: Were you thinking about me?”

She blushed in spite of herself. “No.”

“Oh my god, you were,” he said delightedly, brightening.

“Nope! No!”

“My lady, I’m flattered, but _do_ watch where you’re going, won’t you? You can’t very well kiss me if you’ve knocked yourself unconscious.”

“Can’t very well kiss you if I’ve knocked _you_ unconscious either,” she threatened weakly, laughing as he wrapped his arms around her waist. She leaned back against his chest, looking up at him over one shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” he said, though he grinned unapologetically in her face, “I didn’t think you were really thinking about me. I was curious.”

“You know what they say about curiosity,” she muttered, poking his nose with her own.

“Well hey, if it can kill smoke cats, we’ve got it made.”

“Maybe we won’t see any smoke cats,” Marinette suggested hopefully. The one she’d seen earlier could have been a fluke. “Maybe they’ll know better than to bother with us.”

“Maybe we’ll get lucky!” said Adrien, almost as if he believed it.

“When have we _ever_ gotten lucky,” she groaned.

“We’re together again, aren’t we?” he pointed out with a grin. “That’s all the evidence I need.”

“Well, if that’s luck, I think it’s safe to say we’ve taken more than our fair share,” said Marinette. She stretched up, kissing his chin before wriggling free of his arms, walking a few steps ahead of him.

“Considering all the _bad_ luck, I’d say we’ve yet to break even,” he disagreed with a faint chuckle. “I suppose meeting each other at all was quite a stroke of fortune, but the things we’ve had to put up with…! It’s ridiculous. We’re owed a bit of a respite from bloodthirsty wildcats, don’t you think?”

“The way we’re talking, it’s more likely we’ve jinxed it,” said Marinette, laughing.

“What, like I’m just going to turn around and there’ll be a smoke cat?” he scoffed, spinning on his heel and swinging his arms in an exaggerated double take. He then paused, doing an actual double take. “Oh. Uh.”

“Don’t tell me.”

“We might have a, uh—problem.”

Marinette sighed, turning back, find Adrien locked in a staring contest with a reasonably small smoke cat, the former grimacing, the latter bristling.

“Shit, are—are you not supposed to look them in the eye? Is it like a dominance thing?” he asked Marinette, taking a nervous step back but not breaking the stare.

“I don’t know!” she groaned. “It doesn’t seem to be attacking, so maybe it’s just gonna let us pass? I’m sure it doesn’t want trouble any more than we do.”

“It’s so little… It’s like actually cat-sized. I thought they were supposed to be as big as lions,” murmured Adrien, edging back closer to her side.

“Yes, it’s adorable, now let’s get out of here before—”

Marinette’s words broke off in a startled yelp as she was suddenly pitched forward, twisting awkwardly mid-fall so that she landed on her left shoulder instead of her sword. Her back erupted in pain as something hooked and long and sharp sliced through her shirt and skin. Hot blood ran down her spine like sweat. She skidded across the crust of leaves and fungus, leaving a trail of smooth orange foxfire to illuminate her assailant: A colossal smoke cat, as long as Marinette was tall, with blazing yellow eyes and a furious snarl contorting its face.

Adrien squeaked, half a step closer to Marinette than he had been. The smoke cat’s glare flickered to him, and then back.

“Okay,” Marinette breathed, now locked in a staring contest of her own. Very, very slowly, she began to lift herself up with her free hand, turning so her saber was between her and the smoke cat. “Don’t move.”

The smoke cat hissed and spat, swiping at the toe of her boot. Every piece of fur on its body was standing on end, its bottlebrush tail out stiff behind it.

“Are you okay? What do we do?” Adrien whispered, frozen as he awaited instructions.

“Check and make sure your face isn’t bleeding.”

“What?”

“Please!” she pleaded, rocking slowly onto the balls of her feet, her knees resting against the ground with the barest pressure.

He obliged, his fingers coming away a little sandy, but dry. “Okay, I’m not bleeding. Now what?”

“Now go stand by that tree,” breathed Marinette, pulling a dagger about the length of her forearm from her baldric with her left hand. It glistened in the light of the foxfire too, much cleaner than her saber, which was coated in grime from their journey. Her back burned as she moved, muscles stinging where claws had torn through. “And maybe cover your ears.”

“What—” he started to ask, but Marinette lunged before he could finish, slashing the smoke cat’s parrying swipe with a backhanded twist of the dagger, what would have been a clean slice turning ragged at its recoil. Screaming in pain and fury, the smoke cat reared backwards, momentarily bipedal as it lurched away from a low thrust of the saber. Marinette swore as, having committed to the attack, she stumbled forward, losing precious seconds regaining her balance.

She struck again with the dagger, carving another piece of the smoke cat’s forelimb away. Tatters of bloodied skin and flesh dangled like ribbons from the joint of its wrist, and Marinette saw the white flash of sinew as it continued to hammer feverishly against her. She rolled her own wrist, securing her grip on the saber for another attack, eyes flicking to Adrien to make sure he was safe.

He hadn’t moved to the tree.

…She had gotten a little too used to people following her orders.

She let out a frustrated huff of breath as she rammed the saber forward and upwards, into what would have been the smoke cat’s ribcage—if it hadn’t sprung over her head.

It twisted acrobatically in the air above her, dripping gore across her outstretched arms, and landed on all four paws, only for its front right to collapse under the strain. It didn’t cry out, but the dulling of its eyes betrayed the pain. Marinette flashed it a fierce, victorious grin, daring it to attack again.

The smaller smoke cat, the one they had first seen, was now at the larger’s back, and was watching with wide yellow eyes, kneading at the branch it was perched on with eager claws that looked more like talons against the pale wood.

Marinette swore again, taking a pace to the right to get between the smoke cats and Adrien, who was watching somewhat anxiously, unwilling to cower but unsure how to help.

“There’s too much blood,” she told him, voice strained. “There’ll be more.”

“More blood?” asked Adrien, audibly gulping.

“More smoke cats,” she corrected. “Any of them that can smell it. They frenzy. Like sharks.”

“At least they’re not like eels,” he muttered. She heard him shift behind her, but couldn’t afford to turn around and see what he was doing.

Her shirt was sticking to her back as the blood soaked through the fabric, and her baldric sat heavily against the edge of one wound, chafing the broken skin. _It’s just pain,_ Marinette reminded herself, settling lower into her fighting stance, _it’s just your body complaining._ She buried the sensation in the back of her mind, focusing instead on the memory of Adrien’s touch, gentle and soothing. Her heart was still beating frantically in her chest, but her breathing was deep and even. Panic and adrenaline made for clumsy mistakes, which she could ill afford.

The smoke cat tried to circle her, but as it moved she lunged once again, unwilling to make Adrien a closer target, even if the smoke cat wouldn’t attack him. It leapt onto its hind legs as she approached, surging forward with its claws splayed wide.

They met over the bare patch of foxfire where its initial pounce had landed her, the already disturbed leaf litter flying under their feet as they collided. Rather than using her saber, she pressed her advantage, slamming into the smoke cat with the full weight of her body. It yowled at the unexpected move, and they tumbled to the ground with their arms on either side of one another.

Marinette’s saber was jarred from her grip as her elbow hit the ground, but she kept a hold of the dagger, which had buried itself partway in the ground. As she yanked it free a spurt of flame burst into life, and she and the smoke cat instinctively rolled away from it, putting her saber out of her reach.

The smoke cat was slashing uselessly at her shoulder with its ruined paw, its left pinioned between them. As they rolled it managed to work it free, immediately scouring the side of her arm. Marinette bit down on the scream, forcing the pain away again; her left arm still worked, that was all that mattered. They stopped rolling as the flame spurt died, the smoke cat pinning her with its weight, snapping awkwardly as it tried to work its neck into a manageable position to rip out her throat.

With all the strength she could muster lying on her back, Marinette slammed the dagger in her hand into the smoke cat’s stomach.

It choked above her, yellow eyes widening as it wrenched away, taking the dagger with it. She struggled under its weight, still pinned, her right arm burning and numb all at once, her left still free. She pounded its side with a fist, trying to find the hilt of her dagger without being able to see it. The smoke cat reared its head back like a serpent poised to strike, and Marinette reached up to squeeze its ruined forearm, trying to loosen its hold as its teeth flashed above her.

There was a horribly wet tearing sound, and suddenly everything was hot and coppery and dark, and she couldn’t breathe—

“Marinette!” Adrien’s voice broke through, hoarse from stress and their earlier misadventures in the snow sand. The weight of the smoke cat vanished abruptly, and suddenly she could breathe again, and see again, and Adrien was kneeling over her and his hands were covered in blood, and he looked so distressed that it might well have been his.

“Please,” he was saying, begging, and she blinked up at him, “please, Marinette—”

“What?” she whispered, struggling into a sitting position, pushing herself up with her left hand, mindful of her wounded back. “What is it? Are you alright?”

He relaxed immediately, closing his eyes as he let out a shuddering breath. He bowed his head to press against her hand, which he clutched with both of his, and through the icy coldness of her fingers she felt the warmth of his breath.

“Am _I_ hurt,” he murmured into her palm. “You’re lying on the ground, half ripped to shreds, and you ask if _I’m_ hurt.”

“Are you?” she pressed, anxiously, fingers flexing weakly against him. She could feel the agonizing burn in her upper arm, but if she compartmentalized it, she wouldn’t be able to feel his hands around hers.

“I’m fine,” said Adrien, a little miserably. “I’ve never been so scared in my entire life, but I’m not actually injured.”

She looked around, piecing together what had happened as she scooped up a handful of dirt and began rubbing it vigorously into her wounds. The smoke cat lay a few feet away, her saber buried in its ribs, the smaller smoke cat cautiously circling as it tried to decide whether or not to approach the carcass.

Adrien had recovered the saber while she was pinned.

Adrien had saved her.

“Thank you,” she told him, looking back to find him frowning at her arm.

“What are you doing?” he demanded, ignoring her gratitude. She grabbed another fistful of mulch and rubbed it into the fabric of her shirt itself. “You’re going to get an infection!”

“Better than bleeding to death,” she countered with a breathy laugh. “Besides—we can’t walk around here reeking of blood.”

“Oh,” said Adrien, releasing her hand and getting to his feet, moving behind her, “the frenzying.”

“Right,” she said, fighting not to twitch as he began to press dirt into the wounds at her back. “That smoke cat should distract them for now.”

Adrien made an unpleasant noise in the back of his throat, dusting off his hands as best he could and standing back up. He helped Marinette to her feet more delicately than strictly necessary, steadying her with a hand against the small of her back. She rolled her eyes at him fondly, earning a broad wink in return.

Adrien set about dislodging her saber and dagger while Marinette scrounged up some lichen from a nearby tree, scrubbing halfheartedly at the drying blood on her uninjured skin.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Adrien asked softly, returning to her side with blades in hand. He’d wiped them somewhat clumsily on the fur of the dead smoke cat, but it was enough that she could clean them with the lichen and sheathe the dagger. “We can rest a while.”

“I’ll be alright,” she promised, smiling up at him as reassuringly as she could. “Besides, I don’t want to wait around and watch them cannibalize each other—or be stuck here when it gets dark. We should keep going.”

“Alright,” he murmured, eyes lingering on her injuries. His eyes were duller than usual, though not as dull as they had been when she’d first seen him that morning. He looked sick and scared and haunted, and it pulled at Marinette’s heart in unexpected ways.

“I’m sorry for scaring you,” she said, stepping in closer and wrapping her arms around his waist. She pressed her face into his chest, breathing in the smell of him, avoiding his eyes with renewed guilt. Was she ever going to stop breaking his heart?

He leaned his forehead against the top of her head, arms hovering carefully over hers to avoid her injuries. “It’s okay,” he whispered. “I’m sorry I couldn’t—that I didn’t—I’m so sorry. I couldn’t protect you.”

“Could too,” she mumbled into his shirt, rubbing her nose playfully under his vest. “That would have gone much worse without you, Adrien.”

“I’m still sorry,” he said.

“Me too.”

They walked in silence for a time, Adrien taking the lead now that Marinette was injured, following her directions through the swamp. They were filthy and exhausted, but Marinette hadn’t been so optimistic in years; they were together again. Nothing could stop them if they were together.

They reached the edge of the fire swamp in the early evening, before the sky darkened but after the temperature had cooled, and together breathed a sigh of relief. The trees began to thin, and the reek of the marsh gas dissipated, and the world seemed somehow lighter in the balmy air.

“My ship is waiting in the bay,” said Marinette with a weary smile. “Admittedly I was planning on going _around_ , but we did alright, all things considered. Didn’t we?”

“We lived,” he acceded, laughing faintly. He was swaying on his feet, still staring at her like she was the only thing he wanted to look at. Her smile widened, and she leaned in, pressing a brief kiss to his cheek.

“ _Excuse me!”_

They sprang apart at the sharp shriek, Marinette pointing her saber automatically at the shrill sound, Adrien reaching instinctively for a sword at his empty belt. Marinette, searching for the source of the noise, found herself facing a small army, headed by two very fine women, in very fine dress, on very fine horses.

The first, evidently the originator of the scream, was sitting sidesaddle on an enormous white stallion, and looked absolutely furious. Her long blonde hair was pulled into an elegant braid, her blue eyes were flashing with rage and indignation, and her lily pale hands were clutching the reins so hard her knuckles were white as bone. She wore a dress of loose, flowing gold that accented the color of her hair, and shone in the sunlight against her horse’s fur. Even in this alien setting, she looked like the princess she was.

The second was significantly calmer; the only indication of displeasure was her pursed, painted lips, and a disdainful light in her eyes. Where the first woman’s face was soft and even naïve under her fury, this second woman was sharp and keen and intelligent. Marinette perceived more of her countenance than her outfit, registering only that she wore browns and reds, practical breeches, and leather gloves over six-fingered hands.

 “You’re excused,” said Marinette to the first woman with a genial smile. She did not lower her blade. Her free arm (the injured one) snaked around Adrien’s waist, drawing him closer to her side protectively.

The Princess’s eyes bulged. “That happens to be _my_ fiancé you’ve got your grubby little hands on!”

“Oh, really?” drawled Marinette. “And here I’d scooped him off a bloodthirsty crowd of criminals. I would expect one to keep a better eye on their fiancé than that, wouldn’t you?”

“Surrender,” hissed Chloé from her seat, face beginning to turn red. “Or prepare to die.”

Marinette laughed. “Die,” she said back, her left hand flexing around the saber’s hilt, “Or prepare to surrender.”

She heard more than saw the archers taking up a flanking position; the sound of crossbows cocking was unmistakable, even over the distant sounds of the fire swamp. Beside her, Adrien was looking around wildly, but Marinette kept her eyes trained on the Princess, watching the Countess in her peripheral vision.

“I will not repeat myself again,” said the Princess, in her shrill, angry voice, “Surrender!”

“Nor will I,” said Marinette, “Die!”

“Wait!” yelled Adrien beside her, his voice cracking at the sudden volume. Everyone—Pirate, Princess, and Countess alike—stopped and looked at him. His face was drawn with anxiety, his scab from the eels crusting over, particles of sand still dusting his scalp—and, as ever, he was beautiful.

“For what?” demanded the Princess, scowling down at him.

“Will you—will you promise not to hurt her?” croaked Adrien.

“What?” asked Chloé.

“What?” asked the Countess.

“ _What?”_ asked Marinette.

“If we surrender,” he clarified, licking his lips, “if I go back with you, will you promise not to hurt her?”

“She kidnapped you!” said Chloé, gaping between them.

“She rescued me,” he corrected. He leaned further against Marinette’s side, his warmth radiating throughout her—almost enough to thaw the chill of her disbelief. “Please, Your Highness—we were children together, and she means a great deal to me, and I ask your mercy. As—as thanks, for my safe return.”

Chloé frowned down at him, looking Marinette over as if trying to come up with a way to articulate her disgust.

“The Princess is not renowned for her mercy,” said the Countess, raising one eyebrow.

“All the more reason to exercise it here,” said Adrien. The desperation in his voice was palpable. “It’s—it’s a great story, isn’t it? The noble princess following her fiancé across the channel, rewarding his rescuer? The commoners would think so highly of you, Your Highness.”

Chloé looked pensive. “They would love that,” she mused, smiling faintly.

“There’s a hitch,” Marinette interjected, heart pounding in her chest. “You can’t very well bring me along, Adrien. I’m a pirate.” To say nothing of the romantic competition she so obviously posed.

“You’ll be safe,” said Adrien. “They’ll get you some medical attention. You will, won’t you?” He turned pleading green eyes to Chloé, swallowing thickly. “Promise?”

“Of course,” she said primly. “We wouldn’t want our dashing friend here to succumb to her injuries.”

Marinette narrowed her eyes.

“They’ll take you back to your ship, and—and grant you a pardon,” Adrien continued, looking back to Marinette. He looked so scared. “You’ll be safe.”

“And what about you?” she asked softly. “You’ll go back to Florin City and marry the Princess? We’re speaking of love, here.”

“I can live without love,” said Adrien. He pulled away from her grip, crossing the short gap to Chloé’s side. She helped him climb in the saddle behind her, smiling primly, her earlier rage vanished.

“See to it that her wounds are tended immediately,” she bade the Countess.

“Of course, Your Highness,” said the Countess, bowing her head respectfully.

“I thank you for the return of my fiancé,” said Chloé to Marinette, her eyes flashing so smugly and victoriously that Marinette felt like the smoke cat she and Adrien had defeated earlier. “You are of course invited to the wedding.”

They rode away, most of the horsemen following in their wake.

Adrien didn’t look back.

Marinette’s shoulders slumped as she watched them go, all the fight running out of her, her heart chasing after the fading silhouette of everything she’d ever wanted.

“Well now,” said the Countess, her sharp voice piercing Marinette’s reverie like a blade. “Come along. We must return you to your ship.”

“Spare me at least your lies,” said Marinette, rolling her eyes. “You’ve about as little intention to return me as I have to buy them a wedding present.”

“Truth, then,” said the Countess, spurring her horse forward a few paces, so that Marinette had to tilt her head back to keep her eye. The black and tan hounds swarmed around them, some whimpering excitedly. “I hope you enjoyed your time in the Guilderian Fire Swamp. I guarantee you that you’ll soon look back on it fondly as a deeply relaxing experience.”

“Are nobles naturally this dramatic, or do you have to take a class?” Marinette asked innocently.

The Countess gave an audible sigh, and clubbed Marinette with the pommel of her sword.

Her vision swam, and Marinette swayed on her feet and crumbled backwards into darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So in doing research for this chapter I discovered that fire swamps are kind of... horrifically plausible. Marsh gas explains both the flame spurts and the overall marshiness, while snow sand (called lightning sand in the movie, i went with the alliteration) is literally just dry quicksand. 
> 
> What's dry quicksand, you ask? Well, it's a terrifying real life phenomenon far deadlier than our early cartoon quicksand training prepared us for! Watch this quick video if you want to join me in blind terror: [link](https://www.wimp.com/the-difference-between-wet-and-dry-quicksand/)
> 
> In reality, a fire swamp would have to be an actual swamp, but having grown up with the movie & hating swamps as much as I do, I made it a bit drier. Foxfire is also real! It's usually green, though; I couldn't find anything on orange foxfire but I figure this chapter also has fake animals so... anarchy.
> 
> I'm so sorry this chapter took so long ;; I can't even say that I was just too busy to work on it, I just had to rewrite the damn thing like six times. I changed a lot of stuff because Mari isn't quite as infallible as Wes & Adrien isn't anywhere near as useless as Buttercup, bless her heart (I love her, but my god, at what cost). I'm not changing AS much next chapter, though I will be cutting out most of the torture scenes because they're unnecessary and also sort of... not that torture-y. (i'm just saying, if you MUST include the torture scenes, you've got to commit. you can't half ass paingst)
> 
> EDIT: oh my god i can't believe i forgot to mention this, so like, the princess bride, right? in the movie westley just says "[his] name is ryan" but in the book? in the book?? his name isn't just ryan!! oh no!!! it's felix raymond ryan!! FELIX. i had to put down the book and walk away. "they'll never believe this," i said to my cat. "you've gotta be kidding me. son of a bitch. god damn it." so what i'm getting at is, this AU is destiny. my cat was unmoved. 
> 
> .... also lmao at "i'm not changing as much next chapter" uh yeah, sure, past clare, ya goddamned liar


	11. The Festivities

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNINGS: Chapter contains blood, needles, and a (dubiously sexual) assault
> 
> i'm so sorry this took so long, guys. it's significantly longer than all other chapters (20% of the entire work at this point) & almost every aspect was a significant departure from canon, so it took a bit more work. but we're on the home stretch now! nearly there, kids!

Adrien paced from one end of his chambers to the other, his head slightly bowed, his hands clasped behind his back. He wished he could scowl, but since his return he had been appointed a ‘face choreographer,’ who expressly forbade the display of emotion, lest he give himself wrinkles. The only thing that surprised Adrien about this was that he hadn’t already had one assigned; although having only recently reacquired the ability to feel a full range of human emotions, it was distinctly possible he just hadn’t deviated from his moping default over the past few years.

As it was, he contented himself with watching the patterns in the ornate rugs over the ornate floors, walking along invisible lines he drew between pieces of furniture. Despite his new training, and the surge of festivities since his return (there had been no fewer than eight balls thrown), Adrien looked a mess. His hair was wild, tossed carelessly over his eyes despite his groomers’ best efforts, a rats’ nest of golden silk around a waxy, pale face. His summer green eyes, no longer glassy but sharp and bright, were ringed with purple bags, which admittedly did bring out the color, but were hardly acceptable for the so-called Most Beautiful Man in Florin.

Adrien found himself growing resentful of his appearance, watching his reflection in the mirrors that littered the castle, staring at the fake smiles in his portraits, upending any bowl of water that dared cross his path. His mother’s eyes were no longer enough to stay his hand; his was the face of a betrayer, a heartless monster who cared only for himself. It should look as ugly as the soul it contained.

His hands tightened behind his back as he thought of Marinette, and the look on her face when he had chosen to leave her. She hadn’t even looked surprised. She’d just been… sad.

He had tried to make it easier for her, to downplay what he would be enduring. He’d expected her to look shocked, or angry, or even heartbroken—he’d rather break her heart than lose her to death yet again—but she had stared at him like she saw right through him, just as always.

She must have been so disappointed in him.

He groaned, whirling on his heel as he reached the window, the curtains flapping in his wake. How could he? Didn’t he have faith in her? She must be so upset. He’d taken her choice away from her—but she was so _stubborn!_ She would have chosen to fight, to the very last, and she wouldn’t have been able to make it out. Not that time. Not torn apart by smoke cats and worn out from saving him left and right. She had kept him safe, not just in the fire swamp, but for the entire kidnapping ordeal, and how did he thank her? He married someone else. All because he was too selfish and cowardly to lose her a second time.

He’d never see her again. She would be back on her ship by now, sailing across oceans he could only dream of, conquering whole worlds now that she was free of him. He’d been holding her back, keeping her centered here in Florin while she watched over him and her family. Well, her parents were out now. Adrien was no longer her problem. Marinette was finally free.

He stopped his pacing for a moment, swaying slightly as he closed his eyes, picturing her. Raven hair loose on the wind, the vast sky echoing the blue of her eyes, freckles and sea spray tossed with abandon…

Even in his imagination, she didn’t smile. She just looked out at the horizon, that same sad expression in place.

Prowling his rooms like a caged animal, Adrien didn’t smile either. He had done all he could to save her, but it came at the price of his future.

He wished he had more to give.

∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙

Alya had awoken to an empty clifftop, her hands bound, Trixx loose at her feet, and had immediately realized she was (to put it delicately) absolutely screwed.

She’d been beaten. She, Alya Césaire, renowned across the world for her skill, her unrivaled expertise, had been defeated by a pirate named after a bug.

If that had been all, she might have been able to bear it—it was even a little exciting, to think that there was someone out there who could still pose a challenge. She hadn’t had a duel like that in years. No, it was more the matter of her employment that weighed on Alya as she flipped Trixx close enough to her waiting grasp to slice through her bonds. Papillon had hired her because she was the best. If she were no longer the best, then he had no use for her. If she dared show her face, he would know that not only had she lost, but she had lived to tell about it—and that was inexcusable.

With a heavy heart, she’d headed south. Or at least, what she assumed was south. Frankly, she was just following the coast until she could find a city. Guilder wasn’t exactly a hotbed of criminal activity, but maybe she could wrangle some kind of guard job. It didn’t pay as well, and it wasn’t as interesting, but it was about time she moved on anyway. The six-fingered woman obviously wasn’t in Florin, so she needed to look elsewhere for her quarry.

As it happened, the first city she came upon was a harbor. A small merchant vessel was looking for protection from pirates—an irony Alya couldn’t resist. Maybe she’d even get a rematch with Ladybug.

It never hurt to get in some practice.

∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙

The first thing Marinette noticed was the smell.

It was a dank, musty smell, like a humid room had been left in the dark too long, and was just on the cusp of growing mold. The room she was in didn’t _feel_ humid—it was large, and cool, but from the feel of the air probably underground, like a cellar.

She opened her eyes.

Or a dungeon.

She was laying on her stomach, her arms hanging loosely over her head, her hands and feet bound to the table she had been placed on. Her hair was down, fanned out behind her, but pulled off of her injured back, which felt as if it had a bandage applied but was otherwise exposed to the cool air. Though her boots seemed to have been emptied of concealed blades, and her belt and baldric (and associated weapons) had been removed, she was largely wearing the clothes she had passed out in. Her ruined blouse had been taken, but they’d left her undershirt and some semblance of modesty—though the strap had been pulled down to facilitate the bandage, and she couldn’t feel the familiar weight of her necklace.

 Her cheek was resting on lacquered wood, and from the size and number of buckles she gathered the table was designed to restrain prisoners. The straps were loose enough for her to rotate her wrists and ankles, but not so loose that she could bend her knees or elbows to any real degree. 

She licked her lips. First aid was unusual for a dungeon. The wounds themselves didn’t feel any worse, so it was unlikely to be a form of torture in itself. It could be that they intended to brand her somehow, something requiring a blank canvas that an infected wound would ruin—although her arm seemed to have some kind of salve applied to it as well, so maybe not.

Whatever they were up to, it couldn’t be good.

“Ah,” came a pleased voice, and dim lamplight flared and moved closer to Marinette’s exposed back. “You’re awake! We had to sedate you, your head might feel a bit muzzy. Just try not to move too fast, it will wear off soon.”

“Why?” asked Marinette, surprised to find her voice wasn’t the least bit hoarse.

“Well, even unconscious you were reacting to your wounds being cleaned,” said the voice, still outside her range of vision. Its owner seemed to be checking her bandages. “It was primarily to keep you still for the stitches.”

“No,” said Marinette, “Why heal me?”

“Oh! The Countess insists on it. You see, she loves breaking things, taking them apart—but, as she puts it, where’s the fun in smashing an empty egg? This is to put your yolk back in place, so to speak.” The owner of the voice finally moved to where Marinette could see her, and the prisoner blinked in surprise.

The girl she was faced with looked about her own age, with dull copper hair and a pinched look around her chalky skin. Her eyes were pale, a washed out blue that nearly faded into her sclera, and her pupils were dilated unnaturally in the flickering lamplight. She was small, and seemed somehow brittle; though obviously well-muscled, her stature and knotted fingers gave Marinette the impression that she would snap at the slightest touch. It was apparent that she hadn’t left this dungeon in a very, very long time.

“And when my yolk’s back in place?” she asked, wary.

“Well,” said the wraith, “you’ll be scrambled.”

∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙

Nino had awoken with a pounding headache and a pounding heart. He surged to his feet, swaying dangerously when the blood rushed to his head, and looked around wildly for Ladybug.

Bile rose threateningly in the back of his throat, and he staggered backwards to lean against one of the boulders as he took stock of the situation.

He was alone.

Truly, completely, bitterly alone.

He’d been defeated. It seemed impossible, but it must be so. His last memories were of Ladybug’s arms around his throat, and the old and familiar taste of failure. He could hardly believe that he was even capable of being matched, let alone bested, and yet here he found himself, alive for a reason he couldn’t imagine.

Papillon was going to be so angry.

Nino swallowed nervously at the very thought. Papillon had made it perfectly clear that Nino was only valuable because he was the strongest, an immovable mountain of a young man—who realized suddenly that he had been moved.

He scrambled up the side of the down, desperate for a chance at catching up to Papillon—he had to at least make his case against rejection—but at the crest of the slope he slowed, his feet heavy with dismay.

Papillon wasn’t going to be angry. Papillon was dead.

Numb, Nino approached the corpse, checking it for signs of life despite its obvious state. He shook it wordlessly, even slapping it around some—but there was no response.

Nino mulled over his options, considering going to check on Alya—Ladybug had said she was alive, hadn’t she?—but as he turned his head towards the coast he saw a column of hounds swarming across the moor.

Swallowing, Nino turned and ran.

He only stopped when he reached the coast, his pounding headache worsening into a debilitating throb that was a cold reminder of his limited supply of medicine. Without Papillon, and his stock, Nino’s days were numbered. While this headache was not a symptom of his size, it was only a matter of time before those returned, leaving him useless and, worse, a burden on whatever establishment dared take him in.

What had Papillon said to do? Head back to Florin? Stay in Guilder?

He’d said to kill the woman in red, and Nino hadn’t, and now he was dead, and Nino himself was as good as. Why did he never listen? Why did he try to think for himself when all it ever did was leave him stranded and alone, a stupid boy with stupid muscles and a stupid brain and no friends?

Nino groaned, holding his head in his hands. He’d really done it now.

∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙

Fortunately (or perhaps unfortunately) for Marinette, the healing process was a slow and laborious affair. Her bandages were replaced twice a day, and the salve reapplied wherever it was deemed necessary. She was given water after each of these occasions, as well as along with her thrice daily meals—bread in the morning, a thin soup in the afternoon, and some kind of meat in the evening. It was impressive fare for a dungeon, and when the unearthly guard asked if it was satisfactory she could reply honestly that it was.

She was unshackled several times a day and advised to exercise, to prevent clotting in her blood. Though her hands and feet were bound together with metal cables, Marinette used these occasions to unabashedly explore the dungeon. She ran her fingers along the stone walls, inspected the tree roots running through the rough-hewn ceiling, rattled at the grate over a small channel of water. When she had exhausted the smaller avenues, she turned her attention to the dungeon as a whole.

It was respectable, certainly—the narrow stream gave Marinette the impression it had once been a natural cave, expanded by someone or something to better fit human inhabitants. A huge tree’s root system formed the bulk of the ceiling. The markings in the stone were made with two different kinds of tools, and the fixtures were placed nearer one kind of toolmark than the other. The devices were rudimentary dungeon fare—her table, a whipping post, stocks, a rack—the only unusual thing was that everything seemed new. It led Marinette to believe that either the dungeon itself was new, which was unlikely given the condition of the wraithlike guard, or none of its prisoners lasted long enough to wear things down.

It was a mutli-leveled chamber, the biggest and lowest tier being the one where Marinette spent most of her time, containing the channel and the majority of the fittings.

The second level, up a few stairs, maybe at chest height if she were to stand against it, was where the wraithlike woman dwelt. She never left the dungeon, as far as Marinette could tell—she spent most of the day copying data meticulously into a huge, leather-bound book. Her bed was under the roots, near the fire, where she prepared the food. She ate the same as Marinette every day, though indulged in some wine here and there. She never drank enough to incapacitate herself, and had in fact offered to share, but Marinette thought it best not to partake, under the circumstances. She needed her wits about her.

  The third level was much higher, up a narrow staircase to the only door, entirely iron and bolted from the outside. There was a sliding window in it that was always kept shut, except for when food was passed through.

Marinette’s primary concern was biding her time. She needed to heal before she attempted an escape with so many unknown variables—as it was, she could take out the wraith, but then what? She’d have a few more hours a day unshackled, a soft bed, and no food. There was no lock to pick on the inside of the door, and the hinges were inaccessible, so unless she could devise a plan to circumvent the exit without her usual tools, she needed to be at full strength.

The channel which ran through the cavern seemed to be her best bet, although there was a grate on both ends. Where the water entered the cavern, she could see a ways up into a tunnel of sorts, presumably leading to a source. Since there was air above the water, she was confident she wouldn’t drown along that avenue, even if it should happen to only lead to an underground spring. Worst case scenario, she’d get stuck in a cave and they’d have to come in after her, which would presumably present other opportunities for escape.

Or they’d just leave her in there to starve to death.

Could go either way, really.

She focused what time she could on filing away at the grate with the woven wires linking her wrists together. It was difficult to do without drawing suspicion from the wraith, and she inevitably became soaked by the water, but it was the only plan she had, and with every hair’s breadth filed away she grew closer to freedom.

∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙

The doors to Adrien’s chambers were mahogany, carved with vines and flowers around inlaid panels of gold foil. The hinges were well-oiled, but the doors were heavy enough that the posts creaked under their weight when opened, thereby alerting Adrien to any intrusion.

He had retired to his bedroom following a long afternoon of being paraded around Florin City, waxy skin bronzed in the beaming sun. It made Adrien feel rather like a piece of chicken that had been sent back for being undercooked, so it was with no small amount of irritation that he lifted his head from the window frame at the sound of an unwelcome visitor.

“I would appreciate it if you knocked—” he began, pushing himself off the wall he’d been leaning against, walking into his sitting area only to stop abruptly when he saw the Countess running her six blade-thin fingers over his desk.

There wasn’t anything in that desk that was _his—_ frankly, there wasn’t much of anything in the castle that he felt a connection to—but his irritation flared at the sight. He wasn’t especially prone to being territorial, but seeing his least favorite member of the court sifting through his belongings like she owned the place made him feel belittled in a way her snide comments rarely did.

“Is there something you want?” he asked stiffly, years of etiquette training quashing his instinct to tell her to get out.

The Countess looked up at him, her sharp features impassive. She abandoned his trinkets with a disinterested air, rounding the couch between them with leisurely, narrow steps.

He watched with wary eyes, stock-still as she prowled around him, circling him like she were inspecting an animal. She stopped uncomfortably close to him, so near he could feel her breath on his collar. She was tall compared to most, nearly Adrien’s height, and what she lacked in inches she made up for in force of personality. He glared at her, unwilling to back up despite his discomfort, too tired and irritated to give her that measure of satisfaction.

“Is there something you want?” he repeated through gritted teeth.

She smiled coyly, leaned forward, and kissed him.

His first reaction was shock. He went rigid beneath her, hands clenching into fists at his sides. Maybe it was just because he wasn’t responding, but the feeling of her lips against his was too forceful, too harsh.

Too sharp.

Everything about her was too sharp. Adrien finally tried to pull away, only to be reeled in by six fingers against the back of his neck, sharp nails scraping the base of his scalp, a second hand pressed too firmly into his chest. His mouth curled away in disgust, his own hands pushed futilely against her shoulders—he didn’t have the leverage he needed—and when he made a noise of protest, she bit him.

The pain helped clear his head, lancing through the shock and confusion with a sudden dose of fear. He shoved with all the strength he could muster, not budging her an inch, but breaking her grip on his spine. He staggered backwards, putting as much space between them as he could in a few short steps, chest heaving as adrenaline coursed belatedly through his veins.

The Countess didn’t appear perturbed in the slightest that he’d escaped her clutches; in fact, she looked rather smug. Her breathing hadn’t changed at all, and the only visible evidence of her assault was his blood on her lip.

“I wanted to remind you of your circumstances,” she said smoothly, her tongue running along the stain, returning her completely to her usual appearance.

“…What?” asked Adrien, voice hoarse with stress. His pulse throbbed in his lip, leaving him hyperaware of just how fast it was running. Though he was breathing harder than ever, it felt more difficult, like a weight was sitting on his chest. Like her sharp fingers were still biting into his ribs.

“Your circumstances,” she repeated, gesturing around the room. “You see, everything around you is a privilege. A gift from Her Highness Princess Chloé, to ensure you live in comfort, wanting for nothing. She—and to a lesser extent, I—have saved you from a life toiled away in obscurity and squalor. Your former employers were given the very best, you were educated, clothed, fed—and yet, it’s not enough for you, is it?”

He stared at her, speechless.

“Ever since that kidnapping business, you have ceased to be her Highness’s perfect doll. You have become insufferably emotive, spoiled countless occasions with your sullen conversation, and you’ve let your appearance—the only necessary thing about you—go fallow. I have had quite enough of your ungrateful attitude. You know—and I know—that what transpired in the Fire Swamp was not enough to put that woman from your thoughts, so let me make this perfectly clear: You are never going to see her again. You have chosen this life: Rich, pampered, with a beautiful fiancée who will one day be Queen, and anyone would envy it. The Dread Pirate Ladybug wants nothing more to do with you.”

Adrien’s breathing, still heavier than it ought to be, hitched in his chest.

“She made it perfectly clear how she felt about your betrayal, and made no secret of her contempt. She not only renounced her claim, she renounced _you._ If you decide that a life of luxury isn’t enough for you, there will be no Ladybug waiting for you beyond those walls,” said the Countess, chartreuse eyes flat with distaste. “You are alone here, Your Highness. With the removal of your former employers, you have no one. Either you behave yourself appropriately, or privileges will be removed accordingly.”

She returned to his desk, plucking a single orange lily from one of his vases, and left without another word.

∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙

Marinette didn’t stir as the door to her cell opened. She was restrained at the moment, and until she knew the identity of this mysterious visitor, it was in her best interest to be quiet and unobtrusive.

“I trust things have been going smoothly,” said the intolerably familiar voice of the Countess. 

“Oh yes, Lady Rossi,” the wraith answered, sincere and proper as anything. Marinette could practically see her scattered curtsy. “Her wounds have healed enough to begin tonight, if you wish.”

“Excellent,” said the Countess, “make the necessary preparations. I’ll have the prisoner brought down.”

Marinette stirred in spite of herself. The prisoner? Wasn’t _she_ the prisoner?

The Countess relayed slightly muffled instructions to someone (presumably a guard) stationed outside the door, then approached Marinette where she lay strapped to her table.

“I do know you’re awake,” said the Countess, pulling Marinette’s shirt away from her skin to examine the mostly-healed injury on her back. Though the scratches had been deep, the wounds themselves were narrow and closed quickly.

Marinette fought the instinct to tense beneath the ministrations. “I wasn’t exactly pretending,” she said instead. “There just isn’t much point in opening one’s eyes when one happens to have a choice between ‘view of table’ and ‘view of rock’.”

“You’re right,” agreed the Countess, and to Marinette’s surprise, she produced a set of keys. “We had better adjust you. It looks like your back can handle it.”

She unlocked Marinette’s hands, and the urge to attack her flared powerfully—but the wraith was standing by with a fierce glare, and as slimy as the Countess might be, she wasn’t foolish enough to unleash Marinette with no plan.

“Thank you,” said Marinette, turning and rubbing at her wrists. “I take it we’re going to be making use of one of the other devices?”

“Oh, no,” said the Countess, with a small smile. “Not for you. You’ve caused quite a bit of trouble, you know.”

“Have I?” Marinette asked idly, as she was pressed back against the same table, this time facing out into the room. Her arms were bound by her sides now, hanging loosely on either side of her. A belt of sorts was fastened around her waist, and her ankles were secured; the entire table ratcheted downwards, so that it was almost vertical.

“Oh yes,” the Countess confirmed, sounding almost bored as she adjusted everything. “That boy has become downright insufferable.”

“Kidnapping will do that to you.” Marinette kept her voice and expression carefully neutral under the Countess’s narrowed gaze, leery of revealing too much. She still wasn’t certain what was intended for her, but if Adrien was at any risk, she had to downplay her feelings.

“It wasn’t the kidnapping,” the Countess disagreed. “It was _you._ I have it on good authority that he was behaving perfectly well until at least your little tea party with Papillon—well, barring one awfully thoughtless escape attempt.”

“Was he supposed to just sit quietly and—” Marinette’s dry retort turned to ash in her mouth. “…Whose authority?”

The Countess only smiled.

Marinette lunged, as far as her bonds would allow her, getting within a few inches of the Countess, who didn’t so much as flinch. She strained against the cuffs on her wrists, leather straps creaking from the sudden abuse, but to no avail. “Countess,” she rasped, voice shaking with ill-suppressed rage and desperation. “Whose authority?”

“The proper form of address for Her Grace is Lady Rossi,” said the wraith, looking mortally offended, a white shadow behind her smirking benefactor.

“Oh, there’s no need for all that formality,” said the Countess, turning her smile over her shoulder. “After all, we haven’t been calling her ‘Captain,’ have we?”

Marinette’s eyes darted from the wraith to the Countess, struggling against her rising panic.

They knew who she was.

It could be worse, right? Piracy was executable sure, but from the sound of things she was in for a lot more than just death as it was. Yeah. It could be worse. It was really more _how_ they knew that she was concerned about. Was ‘the prisoner’ one of Papillon’s henchmen? She hadn’t thought they would talk. They had both been so willing to help her for honor’s sake.

Her confusion, however, paled in comparison to her captor’s apparent connection to the team hired to assassinate the love of her life.

“Did you hire him?” she managed, as calmly as she could.

“Whom?” asked the Countess, the picture of innocence. “Papillon? Who’s to say? Certainly not him. You took care of that, didn’t you?”

“He took care of that himself,” said Marinette, gritting her teeth.

“Have I touched a nerve?” asked the Countess, smiling again. “Here I thought the Dread Pirate Ladybug was renowned for taking no prisoners. Or have you changed your tune over the past twenty years?”

Marinette didn’t answer.

“Did you think no one would notice?” asked the Countess, turning away from her and walking to the wraith, who passed a sheet of parchment obligingly on. “For the past… two years and four months, the Dread Pirate Ship _Boucles_ has attacked exclusively vessels of the state.”

“Wow,” said Marinette, “That’s quite a coincidence. Perhaps she was going for the ships with the shiniest hulls.”

“This is after an eight month period of attacking mixed vessels, following a seven year period of exclusively mercantile victims.”

“So what you’re saying is, she’s going senile.”

“What I’m saying is, the DPS _Boucles_ is no longer sailing for profit, but to further a political agenda.”

Marinette laughed breathily, meeting the Countess’s eyes with an almost daring smirk. “And what has this to do with me, Lady Rossi?”

“Well, the punishment for treason is of course, execution,” said the Countess. She didn’t so much as turn when the door to the cell opened, and a middle-aged man in shackles was escorted down the staircase by a guard easily half his age. “As is the punishment for piracy. So for you personally? Not much. If, however, you possess as large a role in this little rebellion as I suspect, it means your crew is out there scrambling to piece things together without you. Why, there hasn’t been a single attack since your capture.”

“Capture is a strong word,” said Marinette, watching the new prisoner be tied the wrong way to the whipping post, his arms behind him, bewildered face pointing in their direction.

“I suppose ‘surrender,’ is probably more accurate,” said the Countess, with a simpering smile.

“What makes you so certain that the _Boucles_ is a part of the rebellion at all? Perhaps the merchants have simply upped their security, while the state hasn’t.”

“Oh, little things,” said the Countess. She unfurled a bit more of the scroll in her hands, which evidently contained statistics. “I’ve had Sabrina here keeping an eye on things, and it is primarily a matter of timing. The _Boucles_ strikes like clockwork, just as the ships get into open waters, having apparently had prior knowledge of the vessels’ departure. Even in cases where the journey is kept only amongst high-ranking government officials.”

“So—a spy, looking to make a quick buck.”

“A spy, looking to weaken Florin from within.”

The guard, a burly youth with no helmet over his dark hair, finished securing the man to the post, saluted, and left the chamber without a word.

“There is also the matter of the periods without attacks,” the Countess continued, nodding at the wraith—‘Sabrina’—which set the latter scrambling off to her table. “They coincide remarkably with assaults on Florin City itself, and unrest in the countryside.”

“Unrest?” echoed Marinette, voice caught between innocence and confusion.

“Revolts. Uprisings. Royal agents being attacked while on duty; their posts raided and emptied, their assets distributed illegally amongst the people.”

“Are you suggesting the crew of a pirate ship is using its free time to do charity?”

“I’m suggesting the crew of a pirate ship is using its free time to incite a rebellion.”

The wraith returned, bearing a small canister which appeared to be fashioned from a quill and some kind of bladder, offering it to the Countess on an open palm. The Countess accepted it, unclipping a small copper vial from her belt and holding it up to draw a thimbleful of liquid. It gleamed tar-black in the lamplight, thick as quicksilver; it did not stick to the inside of the quill, which was left filmy but transparent against its illumination.

“The incident with Papillon was akuma powder, no?” asked the Countess, recapping the vial while the wraith held the peculiar instrument gingerly in front of her.

“It was,” said Marinette, keeping a wary eye on both women.

“One of the deadlier poisons, certainly.” The Countess took the instrument from the wraith, lips quirking upwards in amusement. “Perhaps even the deadliest the natural world has to offer.”

“Is this the part where you dramatically reveal you’ve created an even deadlier poison, killing me instantly?” asked Marinette, deadpan.

“No, this is more of… a venom, I suppose. To be injected intravenously,” said the Countess.

“What, like a snake?”

“Or a spider,” supplied the wraith.

“I’ve been calling it Cataclysm, myself,” said the Countess, as though confessing a great secret. She turned to the restrained man behind her, whose shaking was visible even from Marinette’s vantage. “It’s an apoptoxin I’ve been working to develop. You see, we’ve been conducting trials here and there, and they’ve all been satisfactory—but at the end of the day, one can only learn so much from an animal. Well—I suppose we’re all animals, in a way. Wouldn’t you agree, Xavier?”

The prisoner trembled. “Y-yes, Your Grace,” he managed, “I—that’s what I’ve been trying to tell everyone. They’ve every right—”

“Xavier here was arrested for feeding birds in Florin Square,” the Countess explained, looking back at Marinette over her shoulder. “He’d been told not to, you see, but the poor dear couldn’t help himself, could you, Xavier?”

“No, Your Grace,” said Xavier. He licked his cracked lips. Marinette saw a spark of hope spring to life in his eyes at the Countess’s evident understanding. “They were terribly hungry, Your Grace. No creature deserves to starve when there’s food enough for all.”

“And they arrested him!” said the Countess, as though she couldn’t believe it. “For sharing his own bread with a few pigeons. When he couldn’t pay the fine, they sentenced him to community service; and here we are.”

“You conduct your community service in dungeons, Lady Rossi?”

“I conduct _most_ services in dungeons, Captain Ladybug.”

Xavier started at the name, looking to Marinette with wide, curious eyes, and the Countess approached him with a conciliatory pat on his shoulder.

“We’re just going to do a little experiment. Please do be honest about how this feels,” said the Countess to her prisoner, whose eyes were now shining with relief.

Marinette stiffened.

“Wait—” she began, leaning forward, “wait, there’s no need for that, you know how it works—”

“—Sabrina here is going to make a small incision in your arm… Yes, just there, thank you Sabrina—”

“—Countess, this is meaningless, you can’t—you can’t do this! Just for feeding birds?—”

“Oh, Ladybug,” said the Countess, looking up from Xavier’s arm with apparent surprise. “This isn’t to punish him. Think of what we’ll learn! The things we’ve been discovering about apoptosis are extraordinary.”

“Then… then this isn’t just… it’s not you breaking eggs?” asked Marinette, sagging a little in her bonds. Perhaps she had misunderstood. The word toxin had made her jump to conclusions. It was strange that they should conduct their business here, but…

The Countess smiled. “How I feel about the experiment is irrelevant. The important thing is, we’re taking notes.”

She squeezed the bladder, and Xavier went rigid. His face flashed white, then red, and finally settled on washed-out green.

“You see, Ladybug,” she said, her voice prickling like the hair on the back of a neck, “this isn’t to punish him. It’s to punish _you.”_

Xavier screamed.

∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙

“I can’t do this,” announced Adrien, bursting into the room without preamble.

“I beg your pardon?” asked Chloé, her hair whipping behind her as she wheeled around to face him. She was dressed in her usual flowing white, holding a cornucopia brimming with flowers in the crook of one arm; he’d interrupted her in the middle of one of her portrait sessions.

“I can’t—uh—” he stammered, looking between his fiancée and her bewildered painter. She wouldn’t even hear him out if he embarrassed her. “I… I beg a private audience, dear Princess. You… look… beautiful?”

It sounded more like a question than a compliment, but the Princess preened all the same, flashing the painter a simpering and apologetic smile. “Do excuse us, won’t you?” she crooned. “It seems the Marquis can no longer contain his affections.”

Blushing, the painter stammered his canned words of parting and showed himself out in a flurry of half-formed bows.

The instant the door closed behind him, the smile dropped from Chloé’s face.

“What on earth could be so important?” she snapped, setting the cornucopia with more force than strictly necessary on the table behind her, which was laden with similar tokens of wealth and power. “I’ve _told_ you not to interrupt me!”

“I… I know, and I’m sorry, I just… I can’t do this,” he said lamely.

It had all seemed a grand idea in his room, sweeping dramatically into the royal chambers, tendering his resignation as prince-to-be, riding off into the sunset to find his true love, or at least her family—but here, presented with the stark reality of a very spoiled princess who was occasionally rather fond of him, he felt… almost guilty. It wasn’t Chloé’s fault he was in love with someone else. True, she was something of a brat, but no one had ever taught her any different. She wasn’t _malicious_ or anything.

“Do what? Let me sit through a modeling session in peace for once?” asked Chloé, though her irritation seemed to be fading to resignation. “What is it now, Adrien? Have you recalled some other woman you’re madly in love with?”

“Just the one,” he supplied with a weak attempt at a smile.

The Princess loosed a heavy sigh, turning from the table and crossing the room to the abandoned easel, staring almost forlornly at her unfinished portrait. Adrien came to stand beside her without a word.

“They never can capture it all, can they?” she asked him after a long moment. “The opulence, the radiance. I’ve thousands of portraits now, and none of them are ever as beautiful as they’re supposed to be.”

He looked at the canvas. To him, it seemed a good likeness: The fullness of her lashes, the haughty tilt of her chin, the elegant waves of hair.

“ _I’m_ never as beautiful as I’m supposed to be,” she said, and he felt almost sorry for her, despite the petty dissatisfaction in her voice. “No one can really capture it, can they? How beautiful I am?”

“I suppose not,” he said at length, when she turned to him for an answer.

“No one can ever capture how beautiful you are, either,” she said, sighing again, “You see? You’re the most beautiful man in all of Florin, probably in all the world, and that’s why you’re the only one good enough for me, and I’m the only one good enough for you. Whatever idea is rattling around in that handsome head of yours, lay it to rest, Adrien, please.”

“I just can’t go through with it,” said Adrien, grimacing. “I can’t, Your Highness, and you shouldn’t. You have to see that we’re… that this isn’t worth it.”

“I told you when this all started that I didn’t expect you to love me,” she reminded him, “That I didn’t even want you to.”

“And I told you I would never love another, and I meant it. Even when I thought she was… was dead, I loved her, and I love her now, and I always will. It’s useless to even pretend anymore. I love her. That’s—that’s how it is.”

Chloé’s face twisted into something unpleasant and bitter. “I told you I didn’t want you to love me, but I’m beginning to change my mind on that, if we’re being honest. What’s so great about her, Adrien? What has she got that I haven’t? I’m rich and powerful and beautiful, and she’s… what? A shabby little sailor?” She raised a hand when he opened his mouth to object. “No, don’t. Don’t tell me it’s her heart, or her mind, or whatever. I can’t do anything about that and you know it. I’m talking about assets. I have everything.”

“It’s not about assets,” said Adrien, shifting uncomfortably beside her. “It’s… it’s not _about_ anything. I love her as much for the things she lacks as the things she has. She has a good heart and a good mind and a good whatever, yes, but it’s… it’s stuff like the way she makes decisions too quickly, or how she holds her fork weird, or how she flails her arms around when she’s panicking.” 

“You love her for being less than you deserve?”

“I love her for being her,” he corrected. “I don’t _deserve_ anyone. No one is entitled to another person.”

“Well, I am,” said Chloé, tossing her hair over her shoulder. “I deserve the best, and you’re the best, so you’re mine.”

“You don’t even _like_ me,” said Adrien.

“I like you better than most men,” she disagreed, “although granted, you’ve become even worse since that kidnapping business. Here I thought the moping was annoying.”

“But you don’t love me. You’ll never love me, and I’ll never love you. You want to live the rest of our lives like this? Ranging between tolerating and being irritated with one another? Forever?”

Chloé didn’t say anything.

“What about when we’re married?” he asked, plunging recklessly on. “You can’t tell me the prospect brings you any joy. The wedding, perhaps; you do love parties. But look me in the eye and tell me you want to kiss me, for anything other than show. Tell me you want to spend the rest of your life trying to find a painter who can make _me_ look the way _I’m_ ‘supposed’ to. Tell me you want children with hair like crystallized honey and faces like angels’, whose parents can’t bear to look at them.”

“It’s not like I have a _choice,_ Adrien!” she snapped at him. “I _have_ to get married. I _have_ to have an heir. It’s the law. It’s my family’s _lineage._ I have to.”

“It doesn’t have to be with me,” he said quietly.

“What, you just don’t want to be dragged down with me?” she spat. “You think I’m going to be unhappy? I have everything I could possibly want! It’s _you_ who wants to drag _me_ down. You’re so set on pining and mooning after that silly girl that you’re refusing to see how much better off you are without her. With _me.”_

“So cut me loose!” he shouted, rising to the challenge in her voice, “If I’m so annoying then just break the engagement, find someone else who _will_ appreciate you. Someone who would be thrilled to marry you and love you and give you an heir. It doesn’t have to be me!”

“Yes it _does!”_ she insisted. “You’re the best, and I only take the best! Lila looked all over the country, and—”

“That’s another thing,” he growled, fists clenching at his sides at the mention of the Countess. His tongue ran over the cut in his lip. “If I ever see her again, I’m going to cause a scene. Mark my words.”  

“What do you mean _‘if,’_ of course you’re going to see her again, she’s going to be at dinner tonight—”

“Then I’m not. I mean it.”

“Adrien, stop being a child! I know you two like to harass one another, but—”

“Harass?” he repeated incredulously. “She full-on assaulted me this afternoon! She _bit_ my _face!”_

Chloé’s expression darkened. “I’ll have a word with her. She knows better than anyone to leave your face alone.”

Adrien stared at her in mounting disbelief. “My—What about the rest of me?” he demanded.

“What?”

“Do you not care that your best friend kissed your fiancé against his will?”

“She wouldn’t do it if you didn’t rile her up like that,” said Chloé, frowning.

Every drop of sympathy Adrien had for the Princess evaporated instantly.

“I can’t marry you,” he said, biting back the desire to shriek his frustrations to the ceiling. He couldn’t talk about this anymore. He couldn’t _do_ this anymore. “I would… I’d rather die.”

“Fine!” snapped Chloé. “Fine. We’ll… compromise.”

“A compromise between marrying you and not marrying you?”

“Yes,” she said through gritted teeth. “We’ll go and find this woman of yours, wherever she’s gallivanted off to without you, and we’ll find out if she still wants to be with you—”

“She does.”

“—and if she does, fine, _fine,_ you can go off and get married or whatever, but if she doesn’t, you marry me. Alright?”

“Even if she doesn’t, I don’t—”

“ _Consider_ marrying me, then. As an alternative to _death_.”

Adrien considered. The Countess’s words rang in his ears.

_She not only renounced her claim, she renounced_ you.

_There will be no Ladybug waiting for you beyond those walls._

He knew it wasn’t true. He _knew._ The Countess loved to lie. It was probably her second favorite hobby, after causing pain. Yet her voice stuck in his mind like a smoke cat’s claw, hooked and sharp as the rest of her.

_This is true love,_ he reminded himself, closing his eyes. _Marinette will always come for me._

“Deal,” he said at last, blinking down at the Princess. “Deal.”

∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙

It took Xavier a long time to die.

By the end of it, Marinette was exhausted. It had become rapidly apparent that there wasn’t anything she could do for the man, but she had persisted in struggling against her bonds on the off chance she could at least provide him some comfort.

Her wrists were chafed and bleeding from the biting edges of her cuffs, and her legs could no longer bear her weight, leaving her sagging in defeat and despair as she listened to his pained, rattling breaths.

Through it all, the Countess watched. She took notes and passed them to the wraith at intervals, presumably to be copied into the larger book. Her eyes bore into Marinette like drills, leaving her feeling raw and exposed and far too vulnerable.

Finally the only sound in the stone chamber was the scratching of her captors’ quills. Slowly, Marinette raised her head from where it drooped against her chest, staring with dull eyes at the lifeless corpse across from her.

“Well,” said the Countess, from her seat at the desk, “that was illuminating.”

Marinette turned her head to look at her. Her eyes wouldn’t move the way she wanted them to; everything felt heavy.

The Countess got to her feet, walking leisurely down the stairs to where Xavier lay sprawled. His face was still twisted in a ghost of the agony he’d spent hours screaming to end.

There were few apparent indicators of what had killed him; everything visible he had done to himself. There were long scores in his arms from where he had raked his fingernails, as if trying to claw the apoptoxin from his veins; his neck and shoulders were bruised from thrashing against the floor and whipping post; the whites of his eyes, most chilling of all, had been stained crimson—he had burst several blood vessels with the force of his screams.

Marinette watched the Countess catalogue what injuries she could find, six narrow fingers almost caressing the dead man’s face as she opened his mouth, lifted his eyelids, turned his jaw this way and that, and allowed herself to feel what little she could bear.

She felt responsible. She knew it wasn’t her fault, not really—the Countess would have killed the man anyway, and she would have experimented with Cataclysm anyway. Her being there had likely changed only the location of the execution. And yet, what if? He was an innocent man, guilty only of caring too deeply for the local vermin. What if her coming here had facilitated his selection as guinea pig? What if it _was_ her fault?

She felt sick. Sick and hurt and so, so tired. Her whole body ached from her attempts to reach Xavier, and tremored from aftershocks of witnessing the incident. Her pulse throbbed in her wrists, and dried blood stuck to the inside of her elbows in an irritating crust. She longed to sleep, but dreaded the terrors that doubtless awaited her.

She felt angry. Furious, even. That she, the Dread Pirate Ladybug, should be reduced to a spectator of whatever gruesome horror this vicious creature could conjure up—she wanted to rip free of her bonds and throttle her, watch the life drain from her eyes like she’d watched it drain from her victim’s.

And, despite her best efforts, she felt confused.

For all that she loathed the Countess, the woman certainly did have a way of getting into people’s heads. To track the attacks of the _Boucles,_ and to interpret that data with such accuracy… it was like facing everything she had feared Papillon would be.

Discovering Marinette’s overdeveloped sense of justice had probably owed more to instinct than facts. A pirate renowned for being merciless would hardly strike anyone as the ideal candidate for a ‘punish by killing people in front of’ experiment, yet the Countess seemed to have stumbled upon it all the same.

The silver lining was that the Countess had overplayed her hand—Marinette was now certain she had orchestrated Adrien’s kidnapping. She was somewhat less certain of whether the Countess had planned his assassination, as she had to have been aware of Papillon’s bumbling bravado—but surely even she couldn’t have accounted for Marinette’s own intervention. She may have intended for Adrien to escape, or be rescued in some other manner; why she would want Adrien dead, Marinette couldn’t decide.

In any case, the Countess’s motivations were unlikely to have an impact on what she did to Marinette, so it was all secondary to her main concern: Escape.

∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙

Adrien hesitated to even go to dinner the eve of the wedding, but hunger won out in the end; the kitchen staff had been sneaking him food for the past few days, but tonight had been forestalled by the installation of a bodyguard at his door, a hulking but entirely silent man who glowered at anyone venturing too near.

So with a growling stomach, Adrien lingered in the doorway of the royal dining chamber, peering with unabashed suspicion into the room.

“Sit down,” the Princess told him impatiently from the head of the table, where she sat in her father’s place. The aging King had been seated at her right hand, and his attendant (the congenial butler whose name Adrien still didn’t know) beside him. She gestured impatiently to the empty chair at her left, usually occupied by the Countess, who seemed mercifully absent. Perhaps Chloé had actually listened to him for once.

“You’re in Lila’s place, she’s working late tonight,” she added, when he didn’t immediately comply. “She says she has a lead on the rebellion, but I don’t know that I believe it, to tell you the truth.”

Gritting his teeth, Adrien took his seat without a word. Chloé prattled on, oblivious.

“I suppose she’s more qualified than I to identify rebels, what with all those ridiculous accounts she keeps of everything, but she doesn’t know what to _do_ with them, the silly thing. She gets so excited about her little experiments that she loses her head entirely, and then we’re back where we started.”

“Lose her head!” the King chimed in, smiling in excitement towards his daughter. She sighed impatiently at the interruption. “Are we having a beheading?”

“No, Your Majesty,” said the butler, “at least, not a public one. You know how the Countess gets on.”

“Is—is she _killing_ people?” Adrien asked, drawing back in surprise.

“Of course she is,” said Chloé, rolling her eyes. “What did you think I meant by experiments, Adrien? Try to keep up.”

He swallowed thickly, looking between her and King Bourgeois, who looked enchanted at the possibility of an execution. He supposed it wasn’t really… a shock. He knew better than most what the Countess was capable of, and yet—he hadn’t expected that the royal family would be so emphatically on board.

“It’s only ever criminals, anyway,” said Chloé, waving a hand in dismissal. “Rebels and pirates and things. Nobody important.”

“…Pirates?” Adrien echoed hoarsely.

Chloé blinked, seeming to catch herself. “Well yes, but not _your_ pirate, obviously.”

“Obviously,” he repeated, staring at her. She frowned uncomfortably under his scrutiny.

“That reminds me. We’ve, ah—that is to say, _I_ arranged for our ships to scour the Channel,” she told him. “I do hope you’ll forgive me for thinking it of her, but I didn’t imagine she’d stray far. Either the woman had disavowed you entirely and fled the armada, or she was so stubborn she’d be lurking quite nearby for a chance to steal you away, despite your stated hopes.”

“Of course,” said Adrien. He looked away, down to his hands, folded neatly in his lap. Marinette wouldn’t flee from an armada, he knew, but she might well have fled from his cruelty. If—if he was right, and she did still care for him, then she would be as close as she dared, regardless of his hopes. She’d stay until she was assured this was what he wanted. She wouldn’t make the same mistake twice.

Would she?

“…Adrien, the ships have returned,” said Chloé, with what passed for gentleness. He raised his head sharply, staring into her cold blue eyes. He imagined for a moment he even saw a glint of sympathy. “I was right about her staying nearby, but… She wouldn’t come.”

She pulled something from the folds of her dress and laid it on the table with a soft _click._

Adrien stared down at the necklace he had made Marinette when they were children, and the room seemed to narrow to that single point.

“I’m sorry,” said Chloé. Her voice sounded far away, or maybe it was just that Adrien’s head was suddenly full of cotton.

He didn’t feel the emotions he knew she was waiting for, not out of spite, but because they simply weren’t there. It sort of felt like _he_ wasn’t there—but it was his eyes and no one else’s locked on the smooth, dark stones, tracing the schiller as it flickered with the candlelight.

He focused on finding his lungs and took a slow, mechanical breath. He felt the wood of his chair against his fingertips. He listened for the sound of his heartbeat, abnormally loud against his muffled ears.

He was almost queasy, with a thick film sitting along his tongue, but as he came back into himself all he really felt was acceptance. He was almost reassured.

“No, you aren’t,” said Adrien, when he could speak. “But it’s alright. She’ll come.”

“Adrien—”

His hand closed over the necklace, and he stood from his chair without waiting to be excused. “You don’t get it,” he said simply. “Marinette will always come for me.”

“Adrien, don’t be a fool,” she snapped. “She’s told them she doesn’t want you anymore.”

“No, she didn’t.”

“Adrien, sit down—”

“Why?” He barked out a cold laugh, without a drop of humor. “So you can lie to me? Try to break my heart and snap me up when I’m in pieces? It won’t work, Your Highness. You can craft all the stories you like, give me all the evidence you can produce, but I won’t ever believe it. Marinette will always come for me.”

“She _won’t!”_ said Chloé, exploding to her feet with a stamp of her golden slippers. “I’ve just told you she won’t! _I_ am the one in charge here, Adrien! _I_ sent the ships! And I am _telling you,_ she doesn’t want you anymore! So you are going to marry me tomorrow, because I am rich, I am powerful, I am beautiful, and most importantly, because I _said so!”_

Adrien stared at her for a long, measuring moment. He took in her perfectly styled hair, the color of crystalized honey, and her intricately embroidered gown that drew out the color of her eyes like sapphires held up to the sky. He looked at her clenched fists and her pearl-white teeth, bared in a snarl.

“You are rich and powerful,” he allowed, “but if this is how you live your life, you’ll never be as beautiful as you’re ‘supposed’ to be.”

He walked out without another word.

∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙

Marinette had never been one to idle. Even after she heard the news of Adrien’s engagement and was overtaken by a wave of listless apathy, she had kept herself busy managing the affairs of the ship. She forced herself into action wherever possible, resting only when pressed by her crew, determined to work off whatever emotion was most recently troubling her.

So in the wake of Xavier’s death, she was galvanized into officially attempting her escape.

The body was removed following the Countess’s examination, though whether for disposal or further study had yet to be decided. The Countess apparently wanted to observe the effects of Cataclysm on decomposition, citing some experiment she’d done with mercury and arsenic.

Luckily for Marinette, this meant a guaranteed day or so without her intense scrutiny, and she intended to take advantage of it. While the wraith studiously copied the Countess’s notes into the leather-bound book on her desk, Marinette put every fiber of muscle in her body into sawing at the grate in the channel.

It was slow, grueling work. She fought to keep her breathing quiet and even, glancing over her shoulder every minute or so at the diligent wraith. Marinette was being allowed extra time unshackled to keep her from being a distraction, which worked just fine for her.

In the dark of the dungeon, the only way to tell time was to keep track of how low the fire burned in the hearth. Marinette had been filing away at the grate for two and a half logs before she made it most of the way through the first bar; three to make it through the second. The third bar she sawed through even less than the first, and after resting her arms for half a log or so, she began to pull.

It would have been faster to kick it in, certainly, but she couldn’t risk that the clanging would alert the wraith to her activity. She was lucky that there was only one crossbar, likely to have been added to the grate for spacing rather than bulk.

This was their own fault, really; if you furnish a dungeon with shoddy equipment, you’re going to lose a few prisoners here and there.

The bars were made of a more flexible metal than she had anticipated from the oxidization—she had expected iron, but it was closer to tin than anything. Snapping the rest of the way through was the work of a moment.

Slowly, trying not to make a splash, she bent the grate upwards around the crossbar, peeling it back as if skinning an animal. Her shoulders, sore from straining against her restraints yesterday, screamed in protest, but she persevered. The metal bit into her hands, her cuffs bit into her wrists, the rock bed of the stream bit into her knees, but she was doing something. She was taking action.

Marinette levered out and lowered herself into the water, having to turn her head to keep her mouth clear, and began to wriggle through—until six blade-thin fingers caught in her hair and _pulled._

The Countess hauled Marinette bodily from the water, keeping her off balance with a few well-placed wrenches of her skull, yanking on her loose black hair like a misbehaving dog might get its leash wrenched.

“You sneaky thing!” she laughed, genuine humor coloring her normally frigid tone. “Why, another minute or so and you’d have been off like a fish!”

Marinette was, to put it mildly, exhausted. She’d spent the better part of yesterday trying to get to Xavier, gotten less than a wink of sleep, and then close to a full day of sawing through solid metal. She was soaking wet, chilled to the bone, and weary as only a captive can be. So she didn’t really think to check her surroundings; all that mattered in that moment was the Countess, and escape.

“Never much cared for fish,” said Marinette conversationally, breathing hard through her nose to dispel the water she’d been dunked in. “They’re a little too slippery.”

It wasn’t that she was desperate—she was just _very_ cranky.

She twisted suddenly in the Countess’s grasp, jabbing an elbow into her ribs and turning to face her, bulling immediately into her diaphragm, knocking them both sprawling. The Countess half released her, wheezing, still tangled in her hair but no longer clinging, and Marinette took the opportunity to pull free, aching muscles falling automatically into familiar holds, knees pinning the Countess to the floor before either had even caught their breath.

She drew back like a cobra, grabbing the Countess’s hair in turn and using the purchase to slam the back of her head into the cold floor of the dungeon, teeth bared in a snarl as she fought to deflect flailing arms.

The Countess writhed savagely beneath her, her own teeth stained red where they’d sliced into her lip, her eyes wild and wide, but without a trace of fear.

Marinette punched her in the face.

Distantly she remembered she was supposed to keep her head during a fight, supposed to breathe through the surge of adrenaline and think about what she was doing—but all she could think was that she wanted to see the Countess be afraid. She wanted to hurt her. Kill her, not for the greater good, but just to watch her die. She wanted her to suffer like Xavier had suffered, like dozens—maybe even hundreds—of others had suffered at this woman’s hands. So she didn’t really care about keeping her head.

Maybe that was her mistake.

As she lifted the Countess’s head to slam it back into the ground, a stout fist buried itself in her kidney, and she relinquished her hold with a cry of pain, turning to her attacker.

The wraith.

Swearing, she staggered to her feet, kneeing the Countess in the stomach as she went. The wraith didn’t give her time to find her balance, launching herself in a full tackle that caught Marinette around the shoulders, forcing both of them back into the stream. The wraith came out on top, trying to force Marinette’s head under the water, and the fear in _her_ eyes was so unmistakable it cleared Marinette’s head.

She didn’t have time for this.

For all that the wraith was built like miner, she was clearly inexperienced at fighting. Marinette slackened her grip, swallowing a lungful of air and letting her face be pushed under, and when the wraith began to relax, she struck.

With her full strength, she pulled her knees up to her chest and kicked the wraith away, flipping over and scrambling for the bent grating, intent to escape and return with weapons, or a plan, or _something—_

But the Countess barred the way, and she was anything but inexperienced.

Marinette ran her tongue over her upper lip, wiping water from her eyes with the back of her hand. It was tricky to do wearing the cuffs, one hand spread awkwardly wide in a warding gesture no one would heed. She needed a moment, just a moment, to come up with an angle of attack.

Then the wraith was on her again, wrapping a cord around her throat and forcing her back out of the water, back towards her shackles, and Marinette bucked wildly to throw her, to no avail. She slammed her elbow back into the wraith so many times she lost count, stamping for her feet and attempting a very poorly executed head-butt that failed to connect.

The wraith held her in place, absorbing the abuse like a sponge, unflinching, and the Countess hooked her back up to the table, dodging (most of) the flurry of blows. Her arms were pinioned to her sides, the cuffs dangling from her left wrist, and the Countess swore when they hit her in the struggle.

“That’s enough,” she hissed as they finally restrained her. “That’s enough!”

“Tapping out this early, Your Grace?” Marinette panted through a fierce grin. “Too bad. I’m just getting started. What do you say? Ever wanted only ten fingers?”

“Your circumstances are not as secure as you seem to believe, Captain,” said the Countess, and her eyes were smoldering with fury.

“Your cell isn’t as secure as _you_ seem to believe—”

The Countess silenced her with a punch to the face, in the same place Marinette had punched her earlier.

“The only reason you were kept alive,” she spat, “the only reason you were fed, and doctored, and allowed free roam, was to keep you in the best of health, so that you might prove interesting. You are an experiment, and as such, will only be tended to in the event that you are useful. Do you understand?”

“Well, I guess the experiment’s failed, then,” Marinette spat back. “I don’t care what you do to me. I’m never going to help you. You are the most despicable creature I have _ever_ had the misfortune of encountering, and I should have killed you when I had the chance.”

The Countess’s eyes gleamed. The anger in them faded to a dull resentment, replaced by a vicious sheen. Marinette glared back at her.

“Well now,” said the Countess, “you have a point.”

“Your Grace?” the wraith asked in evident concern. Her face was a mess of blood and sweat, and the color made her cheeks look almost ruddy under her pallor.

“A wise combatant does not grant clemency to a formidable opponent,” said the Countess. “Fasten the auxiliary restraints.”

The wraith obliged immediately, while the Countess turned on her heel and strode to the desk. Marinette clamped her teeth around the building panic, counting her breaths, measuring her heartrate. She may have misunderstood. It may not be too late.

The Countess returned with the small chest containing the quill and bladder canister, passing it to the wraith and drawing the vial of Cataclysm from her belt, setting it atop the chest while she turned to Marinette.

There was a short knife in her six-fingered hand, and Marinette almost wished she would just kill her like a common criminal. She almost wished she could just die here, now, instantly, rather than face what she knew lay ahead.

But she couldn’t wish that; she had to live. She couldn’t die here in grimy dungeon, soaking wet and trussed up like a roasting ham. She had to get to Adrien.

She didn’t flinch as the Countess’s blade opened the crook of her elbow, but she did glare balefully at the woman. Marinette had always thought, privately, that Princess Chloé was too good an actress. That she couldn’t be half the evil mastermind the inner workings of her Kingdom revealed. She had a malicious streak, certainly, and she was well on her way to bankrupting the royal family with her exorbitant purchases, but she had not yet demonstrated a fraction of the cunning required to exploit and oppress an entire nation so thoroughly.

It had been easy to hate Chloé, thinking of her as someone who simply played the fool, who had stolen Adrien away and ruled in luxury with no regard for her people—but watching the Countess fill the device with her poison, more than five times as full as she had for Xavier, Marinette realized she had been right all along. The true evil of the Kingdom had been lurking in Chloé’s shadow from the beginning.

“Have you any last words?” asked the Countess, smiling as if they were sharing a joke.

“Only this,” said Marinette evenly. “One day very soon, justice will come again to Florin, and you will be stopped.”

“What a pity you won’t be here to enjoy the spoils,” said the Countess. “I’ll take good care of the Marquis for you, shall I?”

“His name is Adrien,” she answered, closing her eyes.

The Countess made her injection.

Marinette screamed.

She couldn’t help it. The hot pulse of her own blood running down her arm was eclipsed instantly by the feeling of Cataclysm coursing through her opened vein. Her hand went numb for a moment, stunned into an unfeeling haze before it caught ablaze, every nerve ending stabbing and shocking and tearing away at her. Her stomach revolted at the feeling, bile forcing its way into her throat as she contorted what little she could around the wound.

She stared at her hands in consternation when she could finally wrench her eyes back open. She couldn’t believe there was no external indication of her agony. A thousand needles forced their way through every inch of her being, and her flesh melted like candle wax over the searing heat of bones that had turned to molten lead.

She had to get out of here. She had to end this, to find Adrien and run as far from the Countess as they could get. There was too much left to do. There was too much left to see.

It wasn’t fair.

Her thoughts grew slow and heavy, circling the memory of Adrien’s face like a drain, and quietly, sluggishly—Marinette died.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i know more about apoptosis than i should for... certain reasons. who's with me
> 
> i got a little, uh, carried away with the fighting bits. frankly, they mayn't be accurate to a general fighting experience. i have (had? it's been like ten years since my last fight) an unfortunate habit of uh... well, without boring y'all with the details (i only have so many characters per note) i never started fights, but i took finishing them in more of a Mortal Kombat sense & tried my damnedest to literally murder my fellow children. is homicidal rage in defensive scenarios #relatable, or am i venturing too far from Marinette's own morals? we just don't know
> 
> on a lighter, nerdier note: turns out syringes as we think of them today weren't officially invented until the 19th century? who saw that coming. the concept of a syringe had been around since Roman times, but they aren't recorded to have plungers and from their listed uses seem to have been designed more like a clyster, & certainly they weren't fit to inject anybody with anything--they were mostly used to shoot like, saltwater. fun story, my first time in ireland i was recovering from the removal of my wisdom teeth & got a Super Fun infection, which required i just fuckin' pummel my gums with saltwater every day. i can never forget bc my dentist was named claire & i was so Hurt that she spelled it wrong, like, my dude. our people didn't die for this
> 
> [clears throat] anyway the earliest recording of an intravenous injection was this dude Christopher Wren deciding to try and get a dog drunk via its blood, because sure, alright. this was in 1656, and while his quill-and-bladder model is the one i've used here, you should extrapolate nothing from that but that the Countess is capable of producing a very crude device in the interest of destroying happiness, as she is wont to do. subcutaneous injections (needle through the skin) wouldn't be around until the 1850s, which would have been far more damning than my earlier use of nyctography. listen not a lot of people know as much about Lewis Carroll as neopets inspired me to learn, but LOTS can google "hey when were syringes invented". this story firmly takes place Once Upon a Time, alright? just go with it


	12. The Procession

**One Month Earlier**

Alya decided very early in her sailing career that she hated sailing.

As it turned out, ‘protection from pirates’ amounted to doing chores until pirates showed up—if they showed up at all. It was only the second week of their voyage and already she was prepared to stab the next person to suggest she swab the deck.

“ _Césaire!_ Where’s Césaire?” barked the captain, a man as rough as his beard and twice as prickly.

“If you wanted someone to peel vegetables then you should’ve hired a cook, not a mercenary!” she yelled back, groaning and wriggling further into her most recent hiding spot. Was five minutes to herself too much to ask? Making an honest living was an infuriating combination of exhausting and _boring._

“CÉSAIRE!” he barked even louder, stomping in the direction of her voice. “PIRATES!”

“Pirates?” she echoed, shooting to her feet with an eager gasp. Her shoddy barricade of supplies wobbled, a bucket clattering loudly to the deck.

Scowling, the captain pointed a stubby finger at the horizon, where a ship was hoisting a blood red flag that bore five circles as dark as the black spot, a literary device which would not be invented for several centuries.

“Ooh,” said Alya, wading through barrels with no small amount of difficulty, legs catching where the wood grew roundest. “ _Good_ pirates.”

“I believe that’s something of an oxymoron,” said the boatswain from the helm above them.

“I don’t mean that the pirates are good,” she said impatiently, “I mean it’s good that it’s _these_ pirates!”

“That’s—but that’s—” stammered one of the crew. The rest were filtering up from below with undisguised terror, lifting weapons they clearly had no experience with. It was almost laughable to Alya—was this what pirates ordinarily dealt with? Perhaps she’d chosen the wrong career.

“As it happens, they and I have some unfinished business,” said Alya, touching a smug salute to her scarred forehead. “Run up the white flag, Captain, and the black. I have a plan.”

∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙

Nino had never been an especially picky eater; when you were roughly the size of a full-grown bear, you couldn’t afford to be. He needed quadruple the calories, so he had to take what he could get. Unfortunately, even the cheapest fare was a drain on his meager purse, and most jobs paid for time rather than usefulness, so if he did the work of ten men in a day’s toil, he was still given the wages of one—and the wages of one couldn’t fill his belly.

The ridges along the Guilderian coast were easy enough to navigate, but in the back of his mind his headache droned, and a nagging edge of hunger reminded him he couldn’t afford to be spending this much energy so recently unemployed.

He made it to a bustling town before sunset, but only just.

The wharf was cast in dimming orange light, peaches awash in the cream of clouds and sea. A winding market crossed cobbled streets, folding up for the evening like an animal retiring for sleep. Nino trudged past closing stalls and booths, looking for something he could do in exchange for dinner, or maybe a place to sleep, when he saw them.

A pack of hounds, black and tan by day but golden in the setting sun, whining and crowding around a woman in dress much too fine for the town, who was leading a dark horse by the reins. By all rights, she should have drawn every eye—young, obviously rich, pretty enough—but something about the way she held herself deflected, even defied attention. People’s eyes skated across her like oil off a duck’s back, yet Nino couldn’t tear his away.

At first it was the twinge of fear at seeing the hounds who had so recently been on his heels, and a curiosity to identify his pursuer.

But then his gaze drifted to her gloved hands, and it was all he could do to keep from crying out.

As it was, he tried to stifle a gasp, stepping immediately into the shadow of an abandoned stall, peeking around a post to keep an eye on her.

Six fingers. A noblewoman with six fingers.

He tried to remember Alya’s description—dark hair? Light eyes? He couldn’t see much of her from his impromptu hiding place, but it was her attitude that had him most convinced. The way she ignored her dogs. The furtive glances at something slung over the back of her horse, something that looked suspiciously like a body under a rust-colored cloak. She looked like a fox in a henhouse, commanding her own hunt, stealing a prize out from under someone’s nose.

He had to find Alya—he had to tell her. The woman with six fingers was here, right before his eyes, and he could do nothing without his first and only friend and her confirmation.

He kept hunched behind things, half-obscured by buildings that couldn’t quite disguise his bulk, following the woman with six fingers as she wound her way towards the docks, where a ship with the Florinese flag was evidently awaiting her. The hounds swarmed ahead, while a retinue of guards took their place with the same attitude towards their mutual commander.

Nino racked his brain for a solution. He didn’t have Alya, and Papillon couldn’t help him find her. He milled uncertainly around the closing marketplace, trying to assemble something that even vaguely resembled a plan.

What did he _know?_

He knew Alya. He knew the strength—and apparent mercy—of their most recent opponent. So if Ladybug hadn’t been lying about Alya being alive (and why would she? She’d left Nino alive, and he was far less valuable) then Alya had been beaten in a fencing match. Alya Césaire, the sword, the greatest swordsman of this or any century, had been defeated.

She would want a rematch.

So to find Alya, he had to find Ladybug.

He looked back to the Florinese ship, and the apparently triumphant party boarding it. If they had been in pursuit of the Marquis, whom Ladybug had successfully wrested from Papillon’s custody… Then they must have met with Ladybug, right?

Unless Ladybug hadn’t been after the Marquis at all, but Papillon himself. Nino groaned, trying to remember what little she’d said. None of it had really indicated who she was gunning for, but… Well, Papillon was dead, the Marquis hadn’t been with the body, and neither had Ladybug. So one of them had killed him, and if it were going to be Adrien, he probably would have acted sooner.

What was it Alya was always going on about? Evidence? Clues? He tried desperately to remember. Papillon hadn’t been bleeding, hadn’t looked to be injured, so it must have been an internal thing that killed him. He had been holding his knife, so he was expecting it—or no, he had had his knife to Adrien to keep him in line.

If Adrien had been the one to kill him, he probably would have used the knife, so… it was Ladybug, right? Right. She’d poisoned him or strangled him or something, like she’d strangled Nino, and she probably left with the Marquis; he’d have no reason to fight his rescuer. Maybe he’d offered her a deal? A fortune for his safe return. A ransom. Maybe she’d taken it and led him back to their Florinese pursuers.

Only _that_ wasn’t right, because Nino would have met them on their way back. So Ladybug had to have kidnapped the Marquis in turn, because if he’d been left alone the poor kid would’ve at least armed himself with Papillon’s knife, probably would’ve gone back to meet the rescue party himself…

His headache throbbed painfully. Figuring things out was so much work. This was why he preferred punching stuff, knocking doors down, that sort of thing: Critical thinking was exhausting.

Okay. Okay, so… Ladybug killed Papillon, and took the Marquis. If the Florinese were looking triumphant, then they must have recovered Adrien, and if they recovered Adrien then they must have captured Ladybug. She wouldn’t have surrendered, not when she was capable of beating all three of the Papillon Crowd. So if they’d captured Ladybug, and Alya would try to find Ladybug—then he should follow Ladybug, and wait for Alya to find him. Yeah.

“Excuse me,” he asked one of the guards, emerging from his hiding place to loom over the man like a vulture. “Is your vessel in need of an extra pair of hands? I ask only for passage across the Channel.”

“O-oh,” stammered the guard, staring wide-eyed up at Nino. He had to take a step back to look him all the way in the eye. “I—I believe our crew is adequate, though we appreciate the offer—”

“Now Claude,” said the woman with six fingers from beside the gangplank, taking Nino in with undisguised interest that made his skin crawl, “is that any way to treat someone in need? This man has asked for passage to our fair country, where I’m sure he seeks some manner of opportunity, or employment, no?”

“No,” said Nino, nodding. “Or—or yes. That is to say, I’ve a job I need to do in Florin.” It wasn’t really a lie; it’s just that the job was killing her. “I’m very good at lifting things,” he added awkwardly into the silence, gesturing wide to show off his massive arms.

“I’m sure,” said the woman, smiling. “Come along, then. You can help us disembark.”

Nino scrambled up the gangplank after her without a word of complaint, smiling nervously at a visibly unnerved Claude as he went.

Catching a ride to Florin with his mortal enemy. What could possibly go wrong?

∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙

Alya’s plan, as Alya’s plans always did, had immediately gone wrong.

“Hey!” she yelled, as a boarding hook flew over her head and tangled in the rigging. “ _Hey!”_

“Hey yourself,” said a pirate, hauling herself aboard. She wore a shirt as red as Ladybug’s, but no mask or cowl covered her bright hair and bright eyes. She held a boarding saber in one hand and a long knife in her teeth, and was so short she didn’t even reach Alya’s chin. She pulled the knife from her jaws, leaving room for a smirk. “Are we gonna do this the easy way, or the hard way? Generally the white flag means surrender.”

“And the _black_ flag means parley!” said Alya, stamping a foot. “Haven’t you any honor?”

“I’m a pirate!” said the pirate, grinning and spreading her arms as if to invite criticism. “You’d be hard-pressed to find a pirate with honor, good lady.” Punctuating her speech, more pirates clambered onto the merchant ship, and Alya heard a crewman whimper from their hiding place.

“I met your captain as recently as last month, and she had more honor than any honest sailor.”

The pirate’s grin dropped, replaced first with shock, then deep suspicion. “Our captain?” she echoed.

“The Dread Pirate Ladybug,” said Alya promptly. “Those are her colors, no? She was charitable enough to end our duel by knocking me unconscious and running off after the Marquis, but—”

“The Captain doesn’t just—I don’t believe you,” said the pirate. “Why should she spare you? Why should she fight you in the first place?”

“I am Alya Césaire, the sword,” said Alya, lifting Trixx slightly to draw their eyes. To a man, the pirates stared in awe, and Alya felt a twinge of pride. Even now, Marlena’s work was art. “I was a part of the kidnapping party, and my only guess as to why she spared me is that I spared her first.”

There was a collective gasp from where she’d stashed the crewmen. Whoops. Hopefully their desire not to be murdered by pirates would outweigh the desire to turn her in.

The pirates exchanged glances. Another woman stepped forward, much taller than the first speaker, her hair as dark as Ladybug’s but far longer. Her eyes seemed almost red in the sunlight. “Perhaps we should parley,” she said softly.

“As I’ve been saying,” said Alya, gesturing for the _Boucles_ with Trixx’s hilt.

“No!” growled the first pirate. “I still don’t believe it. She’s hurt Ladybug or captured her, or—or—” Her snarling became wordless, and she rushed Alya with both blades held aloft.

Disarming her was the work of a moment.

“Your captain outclasses me,” she told the pirate, who was now wheezing on the deck, flat on her back, “but she alone. If I must fight all of you, I will, but I am far more curious than bloodthirsty.”

“Alix,” said the tall pirate to the short, “restrain yourself. Ladybug would hardly thank you for killing someone she only just spared.” She turned her eyes to Alya. “Very well—but we talk aboard the _Boucles._ This ship may go free.”

“I thought the Dread Pirate Ladybug never left captives alive,” said Alya, smiling as she trailed after them. The one called Alix squirmed to her feet with a scowl behind her.

“The Dread Pirate Ladybug isn’t here,” said the tall woman, “and you are the only captive we’re taking.”

∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙

“So,” said Nino. “You’re a noble, huh?”

“Of a kind,” said the woman with six fingers. She was standing on the quarter deck while he stood below, her eyes drifting lazily across the horizon despite being roughly level with his. “A Countess, as a matter of fact, though not by birth.”

“Your Highness,” said Nino, swallowing nervously as he half-bowed. “Uh, may I ask—How does that happen?”

The Countess laughed. “It’s Your Grace, little sailor. I was awarded the position by my dear friend, the Princess Chloé Bourgeois, by merit of my exemplary service to the country of Florin. I’m sure you understand.”

“Of course,” said Nino, who understood nothing. “I, ah—I imagine there’s a great deal of trust between you.”

The Countess did not answer for a long time.

“A very great deal,” she said at last, smiling as if it had been a particularly clever joke on his part. “I am of course overjoyed to have retrieved her betrothed relatively unscathed. I can only guess at what twisted creature must have orchestrated the affair.”

“Do you, uh—have any? Guesses?”

“A few,” said the Countess, still smiling that smile. “Of course, the evidence points to Guilder.”

“Right,” said Nino, deeply relieved at Papillon’s foresight. “Guilder.”

“I mean who else could be responsible?” she went on, “A crowd of mercenaries? A genius, a giant, and a—oh, do forgive me, but I can’t think of a word that means fencer that starts with a ‘g’. Why—from the evidence it’s obvious that it’s Guilder. No one could suspect that a criminal syndicate affiliated with Florin itself was responsible.”

Nino stared.

“Of course, the casualty of the day calls that into question. Or, it would if people knew who he was. If they didn’t think him some silly old man in a mask.”

“A… yes. The casualty. There was a casualty?” Nino rasped, when she paused to look at him, apparently waiting for a response. He tried to pretend he was surprised to hear about Papillon. Satisfied, she continued.

“As a matter of fact, a very well-known casualty, not that anyone here would be aware of it. This particular casualty happens to have been the _leader_ of the aforementioned syndicate, which would have been an instant giveaway had there been any wanted posters circulated of the man.”

“There were no wanted posters?”

“Oh, there wouldn’t be, I expect,” said the Countess, smiling again. “Purely hypothetically, of course, it stands to reason that this genius, for all his skill, would lack the power and influence necessary to accomplish such a task—unless he were on retainer for a member of the Florinese Court. Why, a noble, perhaps.”

“Perhaps,” echoed Nino. Was he hearing this right? She kept implying things but never stating them outright, and it was making his throbbing head spin.

“And were such a noble to require a certain bridegroom be disposed of, it then stands to reason that she would call upon his services, particularly if she wanted to be assured of his loyalty; after all, it’s not for just anyone that a man would kill his own son.”

“What?” Nino gasped, eyes boggling. Son? Adrien was Papillon’s son? Papillon _had_ a son?

“Didn’t he tell you?” asked the Countess, her smile becoming a sharp, sharp grin. “I _am_ surprised. It seems our little butterfly was even more tight-lipped than I thought.”

Abruptly, Nino understood.

She knew very well who he was.

She knew that he was a part of the kidnapping party, that he was the giant she’d named. She knew Papillon better than Nino ever had, and had even played him against himself, in just the sort of game he would have taken as a challenge. She had wanted to test his loyalty, and that meant…

That meant she had been the one to hire them.

“No,” said Nino, with perfect honesty, “he didn’t tell me anything.”

“More there for your brawn than brains, eh?” asked the Countess, grimacing sympathetically. “Well, that’s alright. Our mutual friend may no longer be around, but I can handle things from here on out. Leave the thinking to me.”

“Of course,” said Nino. Of course. Of course what?

“Any financial obligations are of course still in effect—when the job is complete, you will receive full payment.”

Oh.

He’d just agreed to assassinate the Marquis.

_Again._

∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙

“I know it’s traditional for both parties to be disarmed for a parley, but I must confess, there is nowhere you could take this sword that I would not find it,” said Alya. “You might as well cut off one of my arms.”

“You are currently aboard our ship, surrounded by pirates, all armed to the teeth, and heading for the open sea. Even if you were to defeat us all, a single person cannot sail the _Boucles,_ ” said the dark-haired pirate, leading her below decks. “You may keep your sword.”

They sat around a solid table, covered in scraps of food and hastily-drawn plans. The pirate swept these aside before Alya could glean much of anything, but it piqued her interest just the same. She hadn’t thought pirates needed such detailed plans—they seemed more like a grab-and-go operation.

“I assure you I have no intention of commandeering your ship,” said Alya, folding her hands primly on the table before her. “I want only information.”

“We’re quite curious ourselves,” she answered. Three others sat beside her, the angry one called Alix, a fragile-looking creature with pale blonde hair and enormous blue eyes, and a visibly apprehensive young man with an eyepatch over one side of his spectacles and a raven on his shoulder. “I am Juleka. Alix you know—these are Rose and Max. We would like to hear more of your encounter with our captain.”

“Oh, sure. Fire away.”

“You said you were among the kidnappers?”

“Yes. One of three.”

The pirates shared a significant look. “Our sources indicated the Marquis was abducted by the Papillon Crowd.”

“Yeah, that’s me,” said Alya, shrugging it off. “Or it was, anyway. Ladybug beat me in a duel, so Papillon hasn’t any use for me.”

“Papillon is—” the one called Max began, but Alix cut him off with an elbow to the ribs. “Ow!”

“What information can you give us about the Papillon Crowd?” asked Juleka, ignoring the scuffle erupting beside her. The girl named Rose hovered frantically over them as Alix put Max in a headlock.

“Not much, but whatever I know is yours in exchange for information on your captain.”

“That’s not exactly a fair trade,” said Juleka, frowning.

“Well, I can offer my services until Ladybug is available. I’m looking for a particular woman, you see, and I’d like her advice. I was deeply impressed by your captain, and—”

“You misunderstand. I mean to say I have very little information about our captain.”

“Ah,” said Alya. “Well. That’s alright anyway. I’d like to stick around for a while, if you’ll have me. Just until Ladybug returns.”

“We aren’t going to pay you a share,” said Alix immediately. Max took advantage of her lapse in attention to prize her arms from his throat.

Alya waved a dismissive hand. “Please. You couldn’t afford me. Room and board would be sufficient.”

“Didn’t we just pull you off a run-down old—”

“I do what needs to be done,” said Alya.

“Whatever needs to be done?”

“Without fail.”

“Good,” said Alix, sitting back. She and Alya had both been leaning forward in their seats, as if issuing drinking challenges. “We need your help, ‘Sword’.”

∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙

_How do I get myself into these things?_ Nino asked himself as he exchanged deeply insincere farewells with a Countess so smug she might as well be winking at him.

“Now if anything should happen to that package I’ve entrusted you with, you’re to report straight to me in Florin City, alright?” she bade, smirking down at him as she stroked one of her dogs with an idle hand. “It should be delivered around the time of the wedding.”

“Alright,” he echoed, nodding at her and doing his best to vanish among the sea of (much shorter) sailors.

The ‘package,’ of course, was her most recent plan for the Marquis’s assassination, of which Nino was the unenthused executor. Though he’d agreed to the plan, it was largely to be polite, and he hadn’t actually made up his mind as to whether or not he’d follow through.

He felt sort of bad about the whole thing—he hadn’t exactly been thrilled to kill the guy in the first place, and here he was accepting a second hit? He didn’t even understand why she’d hire him again in the first place. The Papillon Crowd had failed with a full roster, and here she was sending out a third of the team with vague instructions and a fast-approaching deadline.

Well, okay, he was pretty sure she had Ladybug in custody, but it was _mostly_ speculation based on her demeanor and the mysterious figure he’d seen draped over her horse. There remained the chance she’d already been killed, but the Countess didn’t seem the type for a slow and easy execution.

The fact of the matter was, he had to keep tabs on the Countess, and she was almost certainly keeping tabs on him. So would it be better to kill the man, or chance whatever party she sent after Nino?

Frankly, from Alya’s descriptions, he had developed his own loathing of the woman. He’d soon fight dozens for an opportunity to thwart her plans.

She sent him off with a small handful of coins for any expenses he might incur, which she assured him were no trouble as they were deducted from his payment. It was significantly more than Papillon had ever paid him, though there was little he could do beside rent a room and wait for Alya to find Ladybug.

The whole situation was beginning to feel increasingly ridiculous. To tell Alya about the Countess, he had to wait for her to find Ladybug, who was being held captive by the Countess. He might as well pretend he was going to kill the kid for something to do while he was waiting around.

_Although,_ he thought to himself, head and shoulders above even the tallest members of the crowd, _stealth isn’t exactly my strong suit._

He sighed heavily. That probably meant he should find a day job.

∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙

“Let me get this straight,” said Alya, “you’ve been leading the revolution this entire time?”

“Leading is a strong word,” said Alix, wobbling a hand back and forth in a noncommittal gesture. “I prefer to think of it as ‘trendsetting’.”

“We simply encourage acts of resistance whenever we’re ashore,” Juleka explained. “And yes, conduct a raid or two. It’s difficult to fight back without funding, you know. A little wealth redistribution never hurt anyone.”

“No, but the swords sure do!” laughed Alix, slapping the table in mirth.

“Well, but hold on,” said Alya, rubbing her temples with one hand. “If you’re leading the revolution, and Ladybug is leading you—why did she…?”

“We were hoping you could tell us,” said Rose. “She heard about the kidnapping and told us she’d be back in a day or so, only… she didn’t come back.”

“She was captured,” said Juleka, grimacing. “I just wish we knew _why._ What did she need a princeling for?”

“Oh, well I know that one,” said Alya, raising an eyebrow. They weren’t kidding when they said they didn’t know much about her; she’d been expecting at least some insight into her plans. “I think she just really hates Papillon.”

The pirates frowned.

“No,” said Juleka slowly, “we’ve come up against you before, but she’s always put it off. She cedes things to him she would cede to no other.”

Interesting.

Alya frowned too, reviewing her information. She had assumed it was Papillon simply because neither she nor Nino had done anything to elicit the wrath of the Dread Pirate Ladybug, but what if… what if it wasn’t wrath at all?

“If not the captors… then the captive,” she said slowly. Ladybug had become deeply unsettled when she spoke of love… what if…?

“The prince?”

“She loves him,” said Alya, blinking at the pirates. They gaped at her. It seemed preposterous to her, but it had to be so. All other reasons had been eliminated as possibilities. “She’s in love with him.”

“That’s—what?” Alix spluttered. “Don’t be ridiculous. She—she can’t be. When would she have had the _time?”_

“Perhaps before she took us on as crew?” Rose asked uncertainly. “Her old first mate did imply they had just let a number of people go.”

“When would a prince have had time to man a pirate ship?” asked Alix, scowling. “You know what they say about him. He came from a farm, not the sea.”

“I’m telling you,” said Alya, shrugging. “It’s the only thing that makes sense. I don’t know why she gave Papillon any leeway, but whatever the reason, it came second to protecting the Marquis. Do you know where they are now?”

The pirates still looked uncomfortable with this turn of events, but Juleka nodded hesitantly.

“They were captured on the far side of the Fire Swamp,” she said. “We were supposed to meet them. Adrien was taken by the Princess, and Ladybug by the Countess.”

Alya swore. Vehemently.

“We need to rescue her,” said Alix, hands clenched into fists on the table. “We _need_ to. She’s our Captain.”

“No,” said Alya. The pirates’ heads whipped around, all of them immediately bristling. “No, hear me out. She’s important. She’s the greatest fighter on either side of the Channel, that much is clear, but she’s just one person. You are many.”

“The better to save her with,” said Juleka, stiffer than she had been throughout the conversation. Alya shook her head.

“The better to save the people,” she corrected gently. The pirates grew quiet. “You are many, and you’re _all_ strong. You’re all capable. You know this revolution better than anyone besides Ladybug. We can’t waste your talents on a rescue operation this close to the anniversary of Florin’s founding. The celebrations are the best chance you’ll ever get. A quincentennial only comes along so often.”

“What do you suggest we do?” growled Alix. “Abandon her?”

Alya leaned back on her bench, spreading her hands in front of her. “Send me.”

Alix blinked, leaning back on her own bench.

“Interesting,” said Max, rubbing his chin. “A talented swordsman, equaled only by the Captain… dedicated, clever… unopposed to illegal activity…”

“It’s true that she knows comparatively little of our operations,” Juleka pointed out. “The revolution would not suffer for her absence, but the Captain may benefit from it.”

“She could be a spy,” said Alix, but she didn’t seem to believe it.

“Then we’ve lost nothing in releasing her.”

“Well,” said Max. “One thing.”

“I for one am willing to make that sacrifice,” said Alix.

“You’d better be talking about his identity,” said Max, scowling at her.

“Whose?” asked Alya, looking between them.

“We may have a… friend,” said Juleka delicately, “with whom you will be in contact shortly, thus revealing his identity, and not leading to his murder, _Alix.”_

“Ah,” said Alya, lighting up. “A spy of your own.”

“Kim will be able to tell you everything you need to know,” said Max, still frowning at an unabashed Alix. His raven reacted to the name, croaking gently, and Max rubbed an idle finger along his ruff. “Yes, Markov, I know.”

“He’s in the employ of the Countess, who doubtless still holds the Captain. No one less could keep her from our ship,” said Rose.

“You all speak highly of this Countess,” said Alya, raising an eyebrow. “Is she truly so formidable? I should think you’d worry more about the Princess.”

“The Princess is a _pawn,”_ growled Alix. “A childish red herring to divert the interest and suspicions of the people. Of course the financial troubles are because of her frivolous spending, and nothing more sinister. Of course the people should be grateful that she is so easily swayed by their good favor. It’s all to disguise Her Grace’s machinations.”

Alya hummed thoughtfully. “Why then does she still live? Are pirates not skilled in the art of assassination?”

“Oh, very,” said Rose, with a tone of bloodlust made more menacing by her wide, innocent eyes. “Our hands have been stayed primarily by your interference, as a matter of fact.”

“Mine?” asked Alya, surprised. She had never met this Countess, much less interfered on her behalf.

“By the Papillon Crowd,” Juleka clarified. “He was in her pocket.”

“Was?”

The pirates exchanged a series of complicated looks, and then Juleka turned back to Alya and said, plainly, “He’s dead.”

Alya stared.

She hadn’t thought it possible. He was pompous, yes, but all his showboating was based in genuine competence—no one could play the game like he could. What he lacked in physical strength, he made up for in cunning—and in the rest of the Crowd. Between her and Nino, there was no one who could reach him. No one, except, perhaps,

“Ladybug,” she said quietly, looking between them. “She killed him.”

Juleka nodded.

“And… the giant?”

“He lives,” said Juleka. “We don’t know why she spared him, but it’s likely for a similar reason as to why she spared you.”

Alya let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. Nino was okay. And if Papillon was dead, perhaps they could work together again after all.

“I apologize sincerely for meddling,” she said after a moment. “I can assure you, I have no loyalty to this woman. My sword was Papillon’s, but now, it is yours. Or at least, your Captain’s.”

Alix smiled grimly and got to her feet.

Beside her, Juleka had a palpable air of relief. “The fault is just as much Ladybug’s, truly. Her reluctance to kill Papillon sooner led to an insurmountable obstacle.”

Alix growled. “I’m going to ready the skiff,” she said, sour and sharp. “Max and I will take her ashore.”

“Are you okay?” Rose asked quietly.

“I’m pissed about the secrets she’s been keeping,” said Alix, “but… this is our best chance to get her back. I’ll yell at her when she’s safe aboard the _Boucles._ ”

They left in relative silence, each of the three lost in their own thoughts. The skiff was small, but not so small that it couldn’t support the thin sail Alix raised to carry them into port. The _Boucles_ was moored in a sheltered inlet about a league from the docks of Florin City, but the pirates assured her their journey was safely mysterious. Max wrote a short message on a roll of paper, cinching it tightly and placing it inside a canister on Markov’s leg.

“To Kim,” he said quietly, and the raven ran an affectionate beak over his fingers before taking off, heading inland while they skirted the coast.

“He’ll meet us on the docks,” said Max, “once he can get away. He doesn’t work until this evening, if memory serves.”

They made landfall when the sun was at its highest, Alix flipping a coin to the youngster who helped them moor the skiff. It was as they disembarked that Markov returned, alighting on Max’s outstretched arm with an expectant caw. His keeper flipped open the canister with experienced fingers, reading the message over in a heartbeat.

“He’ll be along,” he said vaguely, nodding at the youth as the pirates (and Alya) moved deeper into the port. They shuffled into a small tavern, unusually bustling for the time of day, and settled into a booth in the back.

They waited only a few minutes before being joined by a tall, strapping young man about their age, with dark hair and a soldier’s uniform. He eyed Alya suspiciously as he scooted in next to Max, passing a small strip of meat to Markov as he did. A waitress approached the table with three mugs of ale, and the soldier tipped her well, asking for a fourth for their ‘new friend’.

“So,” he said evenly when she had come and gone, setting a flagon before Alya with a smile. His voice was deep, deeper than she had expected, but held no trace of malice or fear. “You’re here to help?”

“I am,” she answered, with a small smile.

“Then I am at your service,” said the soldier, clasping his fist to his heart in an understated gesture of fealty. “You may call me Kim.”

“Alya Césaire,” said the sword, returning the gesture, “at yours.”

“Is she still in the Cave?” asked Alix, leaning forward. Her voice was lower than Alya had yet heard it, rough with stress.

“Of course,” said Kim, just as tense but not quite as quiet. “There’s news. I’m to bring a prisoner down at the start of my shift.”

“A prisoner?” asked Max, surprised. “The Cave has stood empty for years, now. Why bring in a second so soon?”

“I couldn’t say,” said Kim, shrugging. “He’s a minor criminal, too—one better suited to the stocks than a prison.”

“What is the Cave?” asked Alya. She was beginning to feel left out of the conversation.

“The Cave of the Cats,” said Kim, glancing around the tavern out the corner of his eye. “Home of the King’s miracle men, until the most recent one died, when it was converted to… a dungeon, of sorts.”

“Of sorts?”

“It has never housed a prisoner,” he said carefully. “Though a guard is always posted, and a master dwells within. It was originally a basement—a workshop, even—with an underground stream running through, and a cottage above. Under the last miracle man, the Countess began to… expand. It ceased to be a workshop of miracles, of healing, and it became something… malevolent.”

“Some say that’s how the old man finally bit it,” said Alix, at Alya’s side. “We know she has an exciting new collection of poisons she developed down there, though some haven’t been tested on humans yet.”

“Her most recent is called Cataclysm,” said Kim. “That’s all I know of it. Except… I’ve heard her test it while I was on duty, before. Generally it is the guards’ duty to dispose of her leftovers.”

“Leftovers?” asked Alya.

Kim swallowed. “Sometimes it’s simply a dead animal, poisoned or drowned or what have you. It was worst in the beginning, when she was just starting to… learn. Skinning. Quartering. Vivisections. She has… an especially keen pleasure for leaving them alive as long as possible, to see what a body can withstand.” He closed his eyes. “To see their hearts beating with no skin or muscle or bone in the way.”

Alya set down her ale.

“She has to be stopped,” said Kim, opening his eyes. “You don’t… you can’t know. I can’t bear to think of our Captain in her clutches, Alya Césaire.”

“I need to know the layout,” said Alya. Her mouth was dry, despite having just taken a drink, and her stomach churned. “Entrances, exits. Does the stream run all the way through?”

“Yes,” said Kim. “There’s a well some fifteen paces north of the cottage. The stream is grated on both sides, but those are the only passages in or out besides the door.”

“Tell me about the door.”

“Solid iron. Bolted from the outside. There’s a hatch in the floor of the cottage that leads down to a little antechamber. Stairs are shallow, very defensible.”

“The well, then,” said Alya. She wished she had Nino. He would make short work of even the tallest well. “Do you think Ladybug would chance the door, or take the grate?”

“I can’t imagine they’re leaving her unrestrained,” said Kim, “but I suppose it could go either way. Since a prisoner has never lasted the night, there isn’t much thought to escapes. I haven’t inspected the grates myself, but there’s a good chance they’re relatively flimsy.”

“Good,” said Alya, stomach settling enough to take another sip of her ale. “I’ll need a file or saw of some kind, then. My sword should be enough to dispatch the master you spoke of. Is there only one guard posted?”

“Yes,” said Kim. “My shift starts at sundown and lasts until noon tomorrow. But the Countess may come or go at any time, and you cannot rely on me for help. Only the loudest screams will reach me in the cottage above.”

Alya considered. “Leave a lantern beside the front door if she is within,” she told him, “and extinguish it when she leaves. Does she come with a guard of her own?”

“Always,” said Kim, “though their number often varies, and they wait inside the cottage with me. They won’t question a lantern in the window; I often wait with only a candle, so they’ll assume it’s for their benefit.”

“Can any of them be counted on?”

“Not to my knowledge,” said Kim. “Though none know they could count on me, either. It is possible every one of us is a spy, but more likely that I am alone.”

“You’re not alone,” said Max beside him. “We are all with you.”

“In spirit, aye,” said Kim, grinning and lifting his flagon in a sort of toast. “I know, Max. I keep you all in my heart.”

He wore it like armor, Alya thought privately. She wondered at how he was able to smile and joke with his friends despite his position, despite the things he’d heard and seen. If he kept his friends in his heart, then he wrapped it in their spirits like a blanket, trusting it to the protection of their memory alone. Kim brandished his affection like she had once brandished her love for her mother, a driving force in her quest for vengeance.

Perhaps, when all of this was over, a few of them could be persuaded to help locate the woman with six fingers.

They finished their drinks without much else exchanged, the pirates and the soldier briefly embracing as they stood to go. Alix clasped Alya’s forearm in a touching (if unexpected) gesture of camaraderie as the boys exchanged words of parting.

“Keep them safe,” she told Alya, her smile tight.

“Rest easy,” Alya assured her. “There is nothing on this earth that can stop me now. Look to the people; the wedding is in two days.”

“I know,” said Alix, regaining some of her usual bristling swagger.

“Here,” said Kim, handing Alya a crudely drawn map as they saw the pirates off. “This is the Cave of the Cats, as best I can remember. There’s… still some time before I have to go on shift. I would appreciate it if you walked with me, just to keep up appearances. If anyone asks, we are old friends.”

Alya nodded and tucked the map into her shirt, just over her heart.

She wore it like armor.

∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙

Nino’s days had been filled primarily with lifting things.

That wasn’t to say there wasn’t a fair share of pushing things, or standing around being intimidating—but by and large, he was either taking things off of ships or putting them on. It would have been dull to most others, had they suddenly found themselves in possession of his prodigious strength, but Nino found comfort in the lazy routine of it all.

Lift crate, walk, set crate down, and walk back. Lift crate, walk, set crate down, and walk back. Lift crate, walk, set crate down, and walk back. Lift crate, walk, set crate down, and walk back.

The nights were more interesting, but far less comforting.

He’d been able to cut a deal with the owner of a small inn, whose associated tavern needed a bouncer to deal with an influx of pirates. Privately, Nino thought it may have something to do with Ladybug’s disappearance emboldening them—but no one was paying him to think.

It was just as well. All he could think about was Ladybug, and Alya, and the Countess, and the Marquis. Matters of state or crime were simply more than he could handle at the moment.

As he headed over from the docks to see about grabbing a meal before getting to work, he stopped dead in his tracks.

There, shuffling out the doorway of the very tavern he worked in, laughing at something a soldier had said, was Alya Césaire.

“A—Alya!” he yelped after gaping in disbelief for a moment more. The soldier, and two sailors trailing behind Alya whipped around, looking alarmed, hands on their weapons and an enormous bird flapping its wings to regain its perch. Alya turned slower, as if she couldn’t believe the sound of his voice, but lit up at the sight of him.

He grinned.

“Nino!” she cried, laughing jubilantly and rushing to embrace him.

He caught her in a whirl of feet and blades, spinning her around and clasping her close to his chest as he started laughing himself.

“Where have you been? How did you get to Florin?” she demanded, leaning back to look at him. Her feet were dangling in the air as he held her, but she didn’t seem to mind.

“It’s a long story,” said Nino, his smile melting away. “Alya, listen. There’s something I have to tell you.”

“Friend of yours?” asked one of the sailors. They and the soldier had warily trailed Alya, the bird’s feathers remaining ruffled.

“We can trust him,” she assured. “I’d trust Nino with far more than my life. He’s the other surviving member of the Papillon Crowd.”

Nino set her down, frowning a little. “Alya, really, I’ve—”

“That may be so, but can he keep his mouth shut?” asked the sailor without the bird. She was regarding Nino with undisguised suspicion, hand tight around the hilt of a knife.

“Papillon was in her pocket. Who’s to say this giant isn’t as well?” asked the soldier. He looked a little more nervous at the attention they had attracted with their reunion, pulling the hood of a cloak over his face and tugging it low. A soldier. What if he worked for the Countess?

“Do you trust them?” Nino asked Alya urgently. She blinked at him in surprise.

“I—yes, I suppose I do. We’re—working together, you might say.”

“I found the woman with six fingers,” said Nino in a rush.

Alya jolted as if she’d been shocked, then stood frozen before doing the last thing Nino had ever expected Alya Césaire to do.

She fainted.

He caught her before she hit the ground, gasping a little in panic.

“Um,” he said helplessly to the other members of Alya’s party. The girl swore.

“The Countess has six fingers,” said the soldier slowly. “Why is this such grave news?”

“She murdered Alya’s mother in cold blood,” said Nino, scooping Alya into his arms like someone might pick up a kitten. “She was just a girl, but… that’s where she got her scars.”

The three exchanged dark looks.

“We’re working against her,” said the one with the bird. “Kim—” he indicated the soldier, “—is a spy. All three of us are part of the crew of the Dread Pirate Ship _Boucles._ ”

Nino laughed, this time in relief. “So she did go after Ladybug.”

“Well, she tried,” said the girl. “She got us instead, because Ladybug’s been captured.”

“I knew it!” he said immediately, jostling Alya as he tried to restrain himself from leaping in victory. “The Countess has her, doesn’t she?”

“You seem awfully pleased with that,” she returned, glaring.

“Oh, uh—no, sorry. With being right. I owe Ladybug my life.”

“You and everyone else, apparently,” she grumbled. “Never leaves captives alive, my ass.”

“So what’s the plan?” he asked, smiling again. He liked this little pirate. She had all the wrath of her bug-sized Captain, packed into an even smaller package.

“Alya can brief you when she comes to,” said Kim, sighing a little. “Is there anything we need to know?”

“Oh. Um. Well, I’m working for her, sort of,” said Nino. He shifted Alya to one arm so he could scratch awkwardly at the back of his neck. “She hired me to assassinate the Marquis. Again, I mean. The hiring. Not the assassinating. I’m not really planning on doing it, but she’ll recognize me.”

“I can’t imagine anyone wouldn’t,” said the boy with the bird. “No offense.”

“None taken,” he said honestly. He had no illusions about the novelty of his size. “Oh! Also—I don’t know if it matters any—but Papillon was the Marquis’s father.”

The girl swore, loudly, while the boy stared at him with a wide, wide eye. Kim seemed as mystified as Nino felt.

“What?” he asked his companions, looking between them in confusion and apprehension. “What is it?”

“She was right,” said the girl, glowering at the unconscious Alya. Nino cradled her a little closer protectively. “That was… the sword was right. Ladybug knows the Marquis, and she cares for him enough not to kill his wayward father, even at the expense of her own plans.”

“Until the son was threatened directly,” finished Max.

“She… loves him?” asked Kim, stunned.

“What does any of this have to do with Papillon?” asked Nino, baffled.

“She’s spared your Crowd a few times,” said Kim, glancing at him. “Alix, really? She loves him?”

“It’s the only thing that makes sense,” said the girl, Alix. “Although frankly, it doesn’t make much sense to me. Has she _seen_ the guy?”

“Yes, and he’s dreamy,” said the bird boy, frowning. “Half the country’s in love with him, Alix, you’re just picky.”

“ _You’re_ picky,” she muttered. “Anyway, we have to get back to the ship. We’re running out of time. Kim, will you be alright?”

“I hope so,” said Kim. He didn’t sound very sure. “If the sword trusts him, I suppose we have to trust him. Though I’m not comfortable with so many people learning my identity is such a short span of time, if we’re being honest.”

“We’re not,” said Alix, shooting him a sarcastic salute. “Don’t mess up, big guy. See you on the other side.” She trotted off towards the dock without a backwards glance.

“Please do be careful,” said the unnamed sailor, sighing. He clasped Kim’s hand in his own. “And tell Ladybug... tell her we’re her crew ‘til the end.”

“Of course,” said Kim, smiling gently.

“Our end,” he clarified. “Not…”

“Of course,” Kim repeated, but the smile dimmed slightly.

The pirates melted into the crowd easily, despite the bird that should’ve stuck out like a sore thumb. Nino watched them go for a moment, then turned to Kim.

“So… do we have a plan?” he asked.

∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙

Alya awoke to the familiar smell of Nino, bundled in his arms like a stack of firewood. She blinked at the unexpected darkness, disoriented, then sat bolt upright as she realized what had happened.

“I _passed out?”_ she demanded indignantly.

“Oh good, you’re up,” said Nino, deeply relieved. He set her on the ground gently, so that she was sitting—under a tree? Where were they? “Here, try and drink some water.”

She accepted the canteen mostly because her mouth _was_ a little dry, and not because she needed to be babied.

“Nino, where are we?” she asked, looking around. They were in a very overgrown garden, apparently belonging to a cottage she could just see above some towering butterfly bushes, a thin tendril of smoke rising from the chimney. Why not go inside…?

“We’re above and slightly to the north of the Cave of the Cats,” said Nino. “Kim said you’d know what that meant? And also to tell you the well is over there.” He pointed behind them, to a small clearing in the wildness of the garden around a derelict stone well with no roof.

“Oh,” said Alya. She ran through her memories of the day. “And… the Countess?”

“She’s in,” said Nino grimly. “But look, you can’t go after her, okay? Not yet. She’s too… she’s too evil. We’re no good at plans. We need Ladybug.”

“Then you’ll help me?” asked Alya, smiling up at him.

“Of course,” he said seriously. “Now, I’m not sure where they’re keeping her, but—”

“Did they not tell you?” Alya blurted. “Ladybug is beneath us at this very moment, my friend. My vengeance is within reach.”

A smile spread across Nino’s face like the dawn breaking over the mountains. “I—I didn’t realize,” he said, grinning dopily. “I thought it was strange that that old prisoner should be taken here—”

“The prisoner,” said Alya, startling. “How long was I out? What’s happened?”

“Well…” said Nino, hesitating. “There was… a lot of screaming.”

Alya got to her feet, relieved to find her head didn’t spin when she did.

“How long was I out?” she repeated, moving towards the well.

“It’s almost morning,” he told her, creeping after her in an awkward crouch to stay below the line of the gardens. “The wedding is tomorrow night.”

Alya looked down into the well. It was too narrow for Nino to fit down, but should be easy enough for her. If she had to carry Ladybug out… well, they’d figure something out.

There was a distant rumble of rushing water, and dimly she thought she could even hear screams, but it may have been in her head; Nino had spooked her a little.

“Do we have a rope?” she asked, turning to find Nino holding one up to her. “Oh.”

“Do you want to go down there yet?” he asked nervously. “The Countess is still inside. You won’t be able to do anything until she leaves.”

“No, I know,” said Alya, scowling at the thought of her. “I just want to be prepared.”

They waited quietly beside the well, Alya weaving a length of the rope into a makeshift harness while Nino tested the strength of the bar across the well. He could support her weight if it came to it, but the crank made things a lot smoother if they could manage it. He gave her a metal clip to fasten to her harness, and then they were all set.

Then came the waiting.

Alya _hated_ waiting.

“Could you just like, knock me unconscious again? Real quick?” she asked Nino after what felt like hours. The sky was lightening, but the sun hadn’t yet risen, and the Countess _still_ hadn’t left.

“Alya, it’s been twenty minutes.”

“No, come on. Do that weird neck pinch thing you do. Wake me up when it’s time to kill the Countess, or Ladybug needs me or whatever.”

“She needs you now,” Nino pointed out, raising an eyebrow. “I can’t fit down that well, and Kim’s got to stay at his post. It’s all up to you, Alya.”

“Could it be up to me _faster?”_ she groaned.

“Well—”

Nino’s mouth snapped shut at the distant creak of timber, and a group of hushed voices reached them.

“I trust everything went well, Your Grace?”

“Of course it did,” came the voice of the Countess. Alya seized up, her blood running cold, her hand automatically snapping to Trixx’s hilt. It was her. It was really _her._

“We heard, ah, some results,” said another guard, delicately.

“I expect you would have,” said the Countess. “While the speed may increase with dosage, it seems nothing can be done about the _noise._ ” Their voices drew closer to Alya and Nino’s hiding place, just on the other side of a thick hedge. Alya didn’t dare breathe. It was only her word to the pirates that kept her from leaping through the leaves and challenging her mother’s murderer to a rematch then and there.

“He looks a bit worse for wear, too,” said a third guard. There was a dull, meaty slap, as if someone were being patted on the side of the face.

“Aside from being a corpse?” snorted the first guard. “Ah, but he’s right. I’ve never seen anything like it, Your Grace.”

“That’s not even from the Cataclysm,” said the Countess. “It’s an apoptoxin, not anything as indelicate as this. The fool did most of it to himself.”

_Apple toxin?_ Nino mouthed at Alya. She shook her head, concentrating furiously as the voices receded into the distance.

“I just need him disposed of. The usual method should be fine.”

“With respect, Your Grace, I thought you wanted to observe the decomposition?”

“I considered it,” said the Countess, “but he’s done too much damage to himself for it to be accurate. A pity. I suppose a higher dosage could mitigate some of the effects…”

Alya sagged against the well as they passed out of hearing, practically melting into the worn stone.

It was her.

After all these years—all these sacrifices. Marlena would finally be avenged.

“Alya,” Nino said softly. He was standing now, smiling patiently as he held out the end of the rope.

“Right,” she breathed. She secured her harness, checked her equipment, and descended the well. It was slow, but stable with Nino’s steady hands operating the winch.

The bottom of the well was shallower than she had expected, the water running only up to her chest, but it was a welcome surprise; she didn’t want to be swimming in such a narrow space.

It was agonizingly slow to wade against the current, but it was all she could do. The slick rock against her feet almost sent her sprawling more than once, though the water was not so quick as to wash her away. It was almost gentle, trying to push her back, to make her give up.

As if Alya Césaire had ever given up anything.

The path to the Cave of the Cats was winding, following the course of the stream as it had broken apart the dark stone—except it was something of a maze. Since it had been worn naturally, rather than carved by human hands, the stream branched off in different directions. Alya kept one hand wrapped around the rope that secured her to Nino, conscious of how many paces she took in each direction; it was the closest she could come to a map, down here in the pitch black. Her other hand ran along the smooth stone in front of her, each footstep inching out slowly in case of a sudden drop. The water grew deeper in places and shallower in others, but it only passed her chin once.

She went down a dead end. She turned around. She found a small cavern, obviously not the one she was looking for, and pushed through. Another dead end. She turned around again. On and on, passage after passage, until finally she thought she could see a light at the end of the tunnel, if she squinted. At first she thought it was in her head, but eventually a corner turned slowly to reveal the unmistakable flicker of firelight.

She drew nearer with a relieved sigh, only to stop abruptly when there was a sudden clamor.

Splashing and shouting, a high shrieking voice demanding someone stop—a pair of lower snarls, almost inhuman but not quite—a frustrated yell—

Silence. But for the murmur of the stream, Alya could hear nothing. She moved forward once again.

A grate came into view, and she sank low to the ground, minimizing her visibility. She pulled the file from her belt only to find, as she approached, that it had already been broken open. She narrowed her eyes and sank lower, peering over the edge like an alligator.

The Countess was back.

Her shoulders were heaving, and a small woman with pale copper hair stood beside her in a similar state, but there, before them, thrashing against restraints, was _Ladybug._

The Countess was saying something about the Marquis, and Ladybug said his name, and Alya was wriggling under the grate when the screaming started.

Alya retreated back into the shadows, swallowing her dread as best she could.

 It was over in scarcely five minutes, but felt like an eternity.

“Lady Rossi,” said the pale woman (or at least, Alya assumed it was the pale woman—she couldn’t see from her position in the rock), “was that a good idea?”

“Probably not,” said the unmistakable voice of the Countess. “It’s unfortunate that I should lose such a valuable test subject, but she was right, you know. I can’t afford a variable like her running loose, and I have neither the time nor resources to assign a babysitter competent enough to restrain her.”

“… I apologize, Your Grace.”

“Oh, it’s not your fault, Sabrina. I should have known better than to allow her so much time unrestrained.” She sighed heavily. “I was just so eager to discover the full effects of Cataclysm. I couldn’t let her muscles atrophy on their own—it would have disturbed the experiment, you see?”

“Of course, Your Grace.”

“I suppose the cadaver will prove useful, in its own way… I had wanted to do some tests… Ah, well. I really am far too busy at the moment. We’ve moved the wedding up to tonight, though I’ve seen neither hide nor hair of that mercenary. I do hope he’s able to deliver; I’d hate to kill the boy myself.”

Alya stiffened, fingers clenching against the rock wall behind her. Tonight?

“If it pleases Your Grace, I could—”

“No, no,” the Countess interrupted. “We need the giant to be seen. It deflects suspicion.”

“I see,” said Sabrina, voice hushed and awed. Alya didn’t see. What was there to be suspicious about? Why should anyone suspect the Countess would assassinate her best friend’s fiancé?

“Well, get her down from the table, then. I have to go rustle up a brute squad. Or rather, rustle up your father, and have _him_ rustle up a brute squad.”

“Could… could you tell him I said hello?”

“Of course,” said the Countess. Her voice was farther away, as though she were moving up the stairs. “And don’t look so hesitant about it. Once the princess is out of the way, you’ll be free as a bird.”

“Thank you, Your Grace,” said Sabrina. The door slammed closed.

Alya let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. Slowly, so as not to splash in the stream, she made her way back towards the grate.

The pale woman was adjusting a ratcheting table, strapped to which was Ladybug, who was very, very dead.

Alya swallowed.

Okay. So… she wasn’t going to get revenge. She had to tell the pirates she’d failed them, and their beloved leader was dead. She’d never repay her debt to the enigmatic captain, never thank her for dispatching Papillon.

She sank low in the water, sliding through the hole in the grate.

No.

She was Alya Césaire, and she never gave up on anything.

While the pale woman’s back was to her, Alya slid out of the stream, crept forward, and pounced.

Immediately, Sabrina resisted her grasp, bucking against the forearm Alya pressed to her throat, but it was futile; Alya had learned her stranglehold from Nino, and knocking her unconscious was the work of a few moments.

She turned to the body.

Ladybug looked small in death.

She had dark circles under her half-open eyes, freckles standing out against pale skin. She was still damp from her escape attempt, plastering her thick black hair to her forehead. Her mask and brilliant red shirt had been taken, her hair let down, and without them she looked naked, despite the cotton undershirt she still wore. 

The restraints had been removed, leaving her sprawled unceremoniously upon the table in a cruel joke of a wake. Alya felt for a pulse, sighing heavily when she couldn’t find one. Bitter tears formed in her eyes.

The door opened, and Alya whirled, expecting the Countess, her hand flying to Trixx’s hilt—only to still when she saw a grief-stricken Kim staring down at her.

“No,” he whispered, his voice hoarse. “No, no, no.”

“I’m sorry,” said Alya. “I’m—there has to be more we can do.”

“She’s—she’s gone?” asked Kim. He sounded as if he were holding back tears, and the knot of guilt in Alya’s chest writhed. “She doesn’t…? She can’t be. Not Captain.”

He had an armful of something, a tangle of fabric and blades.

“What—what do you have there?” asked Alya through the lump in her throat, trying to distract him.

“I… it’s her personal effects,” said Kim. “I thought she’d want her sword, and… and her knives, and things. I… When the Countess came back, I didn’t think—”

“It’s not your fault,” Alya said firmly. _It’s mine,_ she didn’t say. “Give—give those to me. I’ll take her out the well so no one will see you helping us. I—I have an idea.”

“You do?” asked Kim, desperate hope in his eyes as he drew nearer and passed her the assorted blades. He swallowed as he approached the body, pulling a ragged swath of red fabric from the pile and laying it over Ladybug’s torso, as if she were cold. “How—how can I help?”

“What do you know,” said Alya slowly, “about the king’s penultimate miracle man?”

∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙

The story was this:

The old miracle man had lived in the cottage over the Cave of the Cats for around fifty years, tending diligently to the king’s health, until such a time as the princess decided he wasn’t doing enough to slow the progression of time, and replaced him with a slightly younger, slightly more capable miracle man. That miracle man had proceeded to take up residence in the cottage, displacing the old miracle man’s household, helped the king for a few years, and promptly died of high cholesterol.

He hadn’t been an especially good miracle man.

Rather than asking the old miracle man to return to service, the cottage had been awarded to the Countess, trusting in science to preserve the king.

The old miracle man had been very bitter about this, but being as old as he was, hadn’t seen fit to leave the area. He still lived in a run-down shack on the outskirts of Florin City, between the wall that protected the richer districts from the rabble, and the woods that housed dangerous wildlife.

He fit right in.

It didn’t take long to find him, Alya hauling Ladybug back down the labyrinthine tunnels in a fraction of the time it had taken her to navigate them, thanks to the rope still tied around her middle, and Nino hauling both of them out of the well. They’d disguised Ladybug as best they could, draping a blanket over her as Nino carried her in his arms like a sack of potatoes.

Nino swallowed hard as Alya knocked on the door. This was it; this was their last hope.

A Judas window slid open, revealing a scowling face with so many wrinkles it would have blended into the wood, had it not been ghostly pale.

“What,” said the owner of the face, a gruff and impatient man who Nino guessed was around a thousand years old.

“Are you the miracle m—”

“Nope!” said the old man, and he shut the window in their faces.

Alya and Nino exchanged bewildered glances, and, tentatively, Alya knocked again.

The window slid back open.

“ _What,”_ said the old man.

“Ex—excuse me,” said Alya, straightening a little. “I was told that this was the home of the last great miracle man, and I need a miracle.”

“Finding a great man in this hovel would be a miracle indeed,” said the old man, eyes narrowing.

“Please, sir,” said Nino behind her. “We haven’t much time. The wedding is tonight.”

“Oh, tonight, is it?” drawled the old man. His demeanor changed abruptly; though he was still scowling, he seemed less openly hostile. “And you want me to do the ceremony? That’s alright, I suppose. It’s unorthodox these days, to get a miracle man.” He closed the window, unbolting a series of latches and opening the door. “I suppose your previous one died, eh?”

Alya and Nino, once again, exchanged bewildered glances.

“W—well yes,” Nino began, lifting Ladybug’s blanketed corpse a little awkwardly, as if to say, _That’s why we’re here,_ but the old miracle man pressed on.

“It’s no surprise,” he droned, moving into the house and brushing a large black cat off the table, sweeping crumbs and papers aside. He sat down, pulling out a sheaf of parchment, and produced a quill from his sleeve, licking the tip to wet it. “There are few of us left, these days. Only old Plagg in these parts, and for what? Ceremonies. Now then, what are your names?”

“Our names?” asked Nino, confusion growing.

“For the certificate,” said the old man, impatiently. “I can’t exactly marry you if I don’t know your names.”

“ _No,_ no no no,” said Alya, waving her hands wildly in front of her. “It’s not—it isn’t _our_ wedding! It’s the princess’s!”

The man’s face darkened. “Ah,” he said, setting his quill down so precisely it managed to be intimidating. “Then what are you bothering me for? I won’t work for that little brat again, I can assure you. Put me to death all you like; I shan’t do it.”

“We don’t want you to,” said Alya. “As… as a matter of fact, we came to ask you to help us stop it.”

The old man looked up. Alya gestured to Nino, who drew the blanket back from Ladybug’s lifeless face. Slowly, the old man stood, and his eyes seemed to glitter in the early morning sun.

“Well now,” he said, grinning a bright, dangerous grin. “That’s interesting.”

“She’s only been dead about an hour,” said Nino, “but she’s our only hope. She can save the whole kingdom, if she’s… if she were alive.”

“Lay her on the table,” said the old man. Nino obliged, easing her head down gently, as if she could feel it. He didn’t feel right handling the corpse roughly, even if she were never to wake.

The old man poked and prodded at her, paying special attention to the incision in her elbow. He lifted her eyelids, opened her mouth, inspected her fingertips.

“Well now,” he said again. “That’s very interesting.”

“Can you help?” Alya asked quietly.

“I can,” said the old man. “Though whether or not I do remains to be seen. You got money?”

“… No,” Nino admitted reluctantly, suddenly wishing he’d worked another day job. “We—we can get some later?”

“I don’t do installment plans,” said the old man, scowling again.

“Could we barter?” asked Alya. “We have some… some decent blades.” She produced the small armory Ladybug had apparently had stowed on her person when apprehended.

The old man eyed Trixx at her hip, but gave the others a cursory glance. He did a double take when he saw Ladybug’s longsword, plucking it delicately from the pile. “Ah,” he said, staring at the strange inscription on the fuller. “You weren’t lying, eh.”

“A—about what?” asked Nino. “We haven’t lied at all, sir. Please—”

“Tikki!” yelled the old man, so loud Nino’s ears rang. From below came a muffled clattering, and after a moment, a hatch in the floor opened to reveal a woman as ancient as her counterpart, dark as he was pale. 

“What?” she asked, squinting at Nino and Alya as if they were the ones to have summoned her. They stared back, baffled.

“One of yours,” said the old man, and tossed the sword to her. Nino almost yelled, starting forward to catch it, but with a swift, fluid motion, the old woman—Tikki?—snatched it from the air by its scarlet hilt. She brought it in front of her face with a small frown, which quickly changed to surprise, and then suspicion. She looked back up at the pair of them.

“Start some tea, Plagg. We’re in the presence of the Dread Pirate Ladybug. Which of you…?” she asked, climbing out of the hatch.

“Uh,” said Nino, pointing at Ladybug’s lifeless corpse, “her.”

Tikki blinked, apparently not having noticed the dead person on her table. She shot Plagg a scowl, then turned her attention to Ladybug.

“Ah,” she said softly. “She’s so young. You’ve come for a miracle, I take it?”

“Yes ma’am,” said Alya, fervently.

“A quick one,” put in Nino.

The old woman inspected Ladybug in the same way Plagg had done, tutting whenever she found an injury.

“How, um—how do you know her sword?” asked Alya.

“I made it,” said Tikki simply. “One of the few weapons I ever created, as a matter of fact.”

“You did?” Alya asked, gaping. “But it’s so—I mean, if you’ve only made a few—it’s a very high quality sword. I—I’m just surprised.”

“Do you know swords?” asked Tikki, smiling a little. “Yours is beautiful. I’ve never seen its equal.”

“Thank you,” said Alya, quiet again. “My mother made it. She was a swordsmith herself.”

“Marlena’s girl,” said Tikki simply, and Alya jolted as if struck by lightning.

“You knew my mother?” she demanded immediately.

“Oh, a long time ago,” said Tikki, sifting through a small bag beside the table. “A long, long time ago. Do you know what sort of poison it was?”

“What?” asked Alya, blinking. “Oh. Uh—they called it Cataclysm. An apoptoxin.”

“An _apoptoxin!”_ remarked Plagg, who was setting out cups. “Well, well, well. I take it the Countess finally got her act together.”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” said Nino, shifting uncomfortably.

“Were you there?” Plagg asked them, so eagerly Tikki flicked his arm. “When she died? How long did it take? The dosage?”

“It was only a few minutes,” said Alya, frowning at him.

Plagg cackled, clapping his hands together as if he’d just been granted his greatest wish. “Minutes! Oh, that foolish, foolish girl. This will be a delight.”

“So—so you can fix her?” asked Nino.

“My boy,” said Plagg, “I am a miracle man. I can fix far worse than a petulant child’s science experiment gone rogue.”

“As it so happens, death is a specialty of Plagg’s,” said Tikki, who had taken over preparing the tea. “And the Countess is something of an amateur.”

Plagg fiddled with one of Ladybug’s limp arms, scraping away dried blood and scooping a few fresh drops onto a small piece of glass. Nino stared.

“Uncoagulated,” Plagg remarked to Tikki.

“And?” she asked, as he inspected the sample under a peculiar instrument, rather like a telescope.

“Apoptosis,” said Plagg, smug. “Barely a speck of necrotic damage.”

“What does that _mean?”_ asked Alya, scowling again.

The miracle man blinked at her, as if he’d forgotten she was there. “There’s very little I can tell you that you’ll understand,” he warned, “but essentially… apoptosis is… a planned death. Something your body intended to do. I’ve no idea how the Countess has managed to elicit the process, but—”

“Why would your body plan to die?” Nino interrupted, squinting down at Ladybug. “Like a self-preservation thing? It just hurt too much?”

“No, no,” said Plagg, shaking his head. “That’s… you won’t ever die from it all at once. It’s for things like losing baby teeth, or scabs falling off. I suppose the atrophy would prove fatal eventually, as would have been the case here, had the Countess not—I presume—panicked.”

“Panicked?” echoed Alya.

“If it took her only minutes to die, there simply wasn’t time for it all to happen,” Plagg explained. “Why, I’d wager her heart simply gave out. An easy fix, as I said.”

“She’s been dead for a while, though,” said Nino, a little nervously. “Will she be alright when you wake her?” He’d met a sailor on his way across the strait who had been drowned for a while, and everyone said he was changed when they managed to revive him. Perhaps it was different with poison.

“My boy,” said Plagg, leveling him with a look that had Nino wilting, “what part of miracle are you not understanding?”

“Alright,” said Nino. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

“You can go feed the chickens if you’d like,” offered Tikki, smiling brightly. “We’ll need some time to put the cure together.”

“The cure for death,” Alya muttered to herself as she led the way into the small yard. The chickens scattered away from her stalking pace, parting like a wave to let her through. Nino followed through the small gap she’d created, even as it began to close back up around him.

He thought abruptly of his parents, of the home they had shared, with its own chickens. They never parted for him either.

It had been a long time since he’d thought of his warm, sun-spangled youth. The heartfelt smiles and sincere words of praise felt more like a dream than a memory in this place, surrounded on all sides by death and destruction and the dark machinations of the state. His head began to ache, and as he sat beside Alya against a low wall, his eyes filled with tears.

“Hey,” said Alya beside him, looking up in evident concern. “What’s wrong?”

“Everything,” said Nino. He sniffed a little, desperate to keep the tears from spilling over, from admitting defeat. “Everything about this is wrong. Papillon is dead and he was working against you all the time, and Ladybug is dead and she spared us, she doesn’t deserve to be dead—but the Countess does, and the Countess is still alive, and my head hurts, and I’m tired and hungry and I miss my parents. I wish they were here.”

Alya was quiet for a while, rubbing reassuring patterns into his back.

“I never asked what happened to them,” she said at length. “I was always so concerned with what happened to my mother that I barely think of people as _having_ parents.”

“They died a long time ago,” said Nino, managing to choke some of the emotion down, wrestling it into a knot that sat heavy in his chest. “An earthquake.”

“I’m sorry,” said Alya. He could tell she meant it. Papillon had never meant it, when he doled out little platitudes like that. “That’s almost worse. At least I have someone to stab about it.”

“I had them longer,” said Nino quietly, and it was meant as a concession but it didn’t feel like one. Longer, yes, but not long enough.

“I guess we both have it pretty shitty,” said Alya, taking his hand. He looked down at her to see a rueful smile, and she pressed some chickenfeed into his palm with her free hand. “Families, huh?”

“Families,” echoed Nino, smiling for the first time all day.

∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙

It was late afternoon when Plagg and Tikki had finished their preparations. Despite being repeatedly assured that Ladybug’s corpse would keep, Alya felt antsy as they clustered around the narrow table.

“Now, there’s no telling how she’ll react to this, emotionally speaking,” Tikki told them. She was cleaning the wound in the crook of Ladybug’s elbow, not looking at them just yet.

“Will she remember—what it’s like?” asked Nino, haltingly. Alya glanced at him; he seemed shy, shyer than usual, but she supposed he was still feeling a little shaken by all of this. She’d rarely heard him as upset as he’d been in the yard earlier.

“What, death? Of course not,” said Plagg, huffing like it was a ridiculous thing to ask. Alya frowned at him, and Tikki paused in wrapping a bandage around Ladybug’s arm to swat him on the shoulder.

“It’s a perfectly reasonable question,” she told him, scowling. “They don’t know, they aren’t miracle men.”

“How’s she gonna make new memories if she’s dead? Her brain ain’t exactly recording at the moment,” Plagg protested, rubbing the place she’d hit him sullenly. “No, she won’t remember. She’ll remember dying though, which is what Tikki was saying.”

“Will she be in pain?” asked Alya. She hoped Ladybug wouldn’t think she were still in the Cave of the Cats—even if she weren’t at full strength, she’d pose a significant threat. Although between Alya’s steel and Nino’s strength subduing her shouldn’t take too long, it was time they couldn’t afford to waste.

“No, the cure will take care of that. There may be some lingering nerve damage, but if anything it will be numbness, at least in the beginning.”

“How lingering?” asked Nino, concern evident as he leaned over Plagg’s shoulder to peer at the little pill he and Tikki had managed to put together.

“Well, as long as she doesn’t push herself, it shouldn’t be a problem,” said Tikki slowly, “but it’s likely she’ll never regain that functionality. We can only hope it isn’t too extensive.”

“Right,” said Alya, swallowing back the lump of dread that was growing in her throat. She’d be alive. That was what mattered. They didn’t need her in top physical condition, they needed her mind. Papillon had never been physically imposing, that’s what the rest of the Crowd was _for—_ if Ladybug could use her mind, she could slot easily into that position. It might frustrate her, but…

Well, but nothing. She could get frustrated all she wanted, at least she’d be alive again.

“What you’re going to want to do is feed her the cure about twenty minutes before you need her at full strength,” Plagg instructed. “It’s got an energy boost in it that should make up for having been dead all day, but when that wears off she’s gonna be real tired, especially if she was before the dying thing.”

“I think she was up all night,” sighed Alya. She could relate; despite the little snatches of sleep she had managed, she was too strung-out to feel it.

“Well, great,” said Plagg sourly. “If you kids get caught, don’t drag me into it, alright? Just tell the Countess her poison sucks, and so does she.”

“We won’t get caught,” said Nino. “We’ll get you your house back and everything, sir.”

“Well now,” said Plagg, brightening significantly. “That’s more like it. A little respect.”

“Well, well, well,” Tikki droned in a poor imitation, rolling her eyes. “Don’t encourage him, Nino sweetheart. He only gets worse.”

“I age like a fine wine, you—”

“Make sure to keep her hydrated now,” Tikki interrupted, pressing the cure into Alya’s hand and curling her fingers around it, patting them in reassurance. “It will help stave off exhaustion, at least.”

“Thank you,” said Alya, through the lump of emotion forming in her throat. “Both of you. Thank you so much.”

“Don’t let it go to waste, kid,” said Plagg, with none of his typical venom.

Nino bundled Ladybug back up in the blanket, and they slipped back into the city with the rest of the festival-goers. Everyone was laughing and excited, thrilled to celebrate Florin’s anniversary, heedless of the danger in their midst.

Alya led the way, slipping up a narrow staircase to crest the wall and get a view of the castle. Nino followed, as low to the ground as he could, and they all managed to settle against the battlements’ crenellations without attracting suspicion.

“Ready?” she asked him.

“Ready,” he answered.

Together they managed to force the cure down Ladybug’s throat, staring, waiting—

Ladybug’s eyes popped open, and she immediately curled in on herself as a fit of coughing wracked her body.

“Wh—what—” she tried, between coughs.

“It’s a long story,” said Alya, sagging in relief. “The important things are: Adrien is marrying the Princess tonight, you may experience some lightheadedness, and I would very much like to murder the Countess.”

Ladybug blinked at her.

“The sword,” she croaked after a moment, placing the memory. “Hm. You and me both. I do believe she tried to kill me just now.”

“Ooh, uh, about that—”

“Yeah, she succeeded,” said Alya, wincing. “Like I said, a long story. You’ve been dead for hours, now. Or, you were. You’re alive again now. For good?” She glanced to Nino, who nodded in confirmation. “Yeah. I mean, not like immortal for good, but—”

“I understand,” Ladybug interrupted. “May I have your names, please?”

“Alya Césaire.”

“Nino. Uh, Lahiffe.”

“Marinette,” supplied Ladybug, to Alya’s surprise. Her own crew didn’t even call her that. “Would you two perhaps be interested in crashing a wedding?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ♪♫ fantasy arsenic, where all your dreams come truuuuue ♫♪
> 
> yeah let’s kick things off with an explanation on the apoptoxin actually, uh—basically, the Machine is cool but there’s only so much one can do with it, right? between the book’s suction cup nightmare & the movie’s sick water wheel deal, there wasn’t anything else to say. lila isn’t like tyrone; she can’t be. her motivations are different—this isn’t purely scientific for her, and she has plans that could be thwarted, things to protect. she stands to lose more by leaving marinette alive than rugen did westley, so i leaned into the psychological aspects and went with something 100% fatal, rather than an incremental process. 
> 
> and, you know, it’s more interesting to hear about marinette’s maneuverings than westley’s meditation. just imo!
> 
> so poison, yeah. couldn’t be a real poison bc I’m Booboo the Biology Fool & have never taken a hard science class in my life (how i graduated high school remains a mystery i’m not looking very deeply into). everything i know about poison comes from my weird penchant for forensic tv, and whatever esoteric bullshit i’ve most recently researched. and, since I’m weeb trash, Detective Conan (sue me, i like procedurals). having read up on apoptosis to try and figure out what the fuck Aoyama-sensei is trying to tell us with this APTX4869 shit, because again, weeb trash—it seemed a good starting point. 
> 
> the fact that i know so much about fucking arsenic from my Morbid Childhood TV Preferences was a happy coincidence (you would not believe how many people murder their spouses with rat poison). 
> 
> except what’s the trouble with arsenic? it takes too damn long! contrary to what most fiction would have you believe, arsenic takes about half an hour to kick in, and days to kill you. basically arsenic inhibits this one enzyme & the cells go into cellular apoptosis & that’s all i’m going to say about that because again, Booboo the Biology Fool, never took chemistry, etc., etc.. let’s all just pretend i know what i’m talking about for a minute longer 
> 
> Cataclysm is basically…… Super Arsenic. it works faster, it’s more efficient, it doesn’t have any chemical components that i have to understand; you know, the works. all the expediency of Popular Fiction Arsenic with none of the mess! everybody wins! oh, and with the convenience of arsenic’s preservative effects, it means Marinette’s corpse kept longer. did i mention that last chapter? Mercury and arsenic and shit make you decompose slower, they think that’s one of the reasons Chinese emperors kept taking it to gain immortality. and like Fuck Dude, it works—Lady Dai died in 163 BCE & her corpse looks fresh as hell (it’s still a corpse though so google with caution). 
> 
> Uhhh.... i put way too much thought into the pirates for how little i'm actually using them. should i have spent two weeks learning about sailing? may have been uh... unnecessary, sure, but authenticity, my dudes. authenticity.


End file.
